Updated on Oct. 17, 2025, to include photos from the groundbreaking ceremony.
The Lucy Daniels Center, which has provided mental health services for young children in the Triangle for 35 years, is breaking ground Friday on an expansion that will nearly triple the number of children the nonprofit can serve.
The $4.1 million project will add 18 offices to the Cary-based center, which provides psychiatric and therapeutic services every year to about 500 children younger than 12 years old. The expansion will allow the center to reach more than 1,500 children annually and add speech therapy, occupational therapy and onsite psychological testing, said psychologist Emily Odjaghian, clinical and executive director of the center.
A $900,000 seed grant obtained from federal COVID-19 funding funneled through Wake County in 2022 helped kick-start the project, Odjaghian said. At the time they received the grant, they already had an almost yearlong waitlist, she said.
“And wow … the children’s mental health crisis kind of exploded at that point,” she said.
As needs have increased — driven in part by the pandemic and social media use fueling mental health issues among youth, according to Odjaghian — finding help has become harder for parents.
More than half of North Carolina children ages 3 to 17 have trouble finding mental health help, according to the 2025 Child Health Report Card from advocacy group NC Child along with the North Carolina Institute of Medicine. That’s up from 37 percent at the beginning of the pandemic.
“The need is already in these communities,” said Harold Kudler, a Duke University psychiatrist who has served on the Lucy Daniels Center Board of Directors. “The expansion provides an opportunity to continue to grow and meet the needs.”
‘I was stymied’
A lack of mental health providers, especially those focused on children and adolescents, makes it difficult for families to find care, Kudler and others told NC Health News.
North Carolina is struggling with a shortage of child psychiatrists, despite adding 36 practitioners between 2019 and January 2024, according to data compiled by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
While there are now 390 psychiatrists serving children in the state, many are concentrated in larger, primarily urban, communities and around large hospitals. That leaves large swathes of the state — 61 counties — with no child or adolescent psychiatrist, according to data compiled by Cecil B. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at UNC- Chapel Hill.
The federal government has identified 15 North Carolina counties as Health Professional Shortage Areas due to a lack of access to mental health providers.
While public schools provide many mental health services to students, they too are woefully understaffed to meet the need, child advocates say.
In 2024, there were 1,928 students for each school psychologist in the state, according to the 2025 Child Health Report Card. That’s nearly four times the 500 students per psychologist recommended by the National Association of School Psychologists.
There is no full-time psychologist in 21 of the state’s 115 school districts.
Finding mental health care for children has long been an issue, Kudler said.
He remembers how difficult it was to find help when his own youngest child was struggling.
“We tried to find a good therapist for her, and even knowing the community, I was stymied,” he said. “I knew the ropes. I knew the community. I knew how … to advocate for her.”
After a long period, they finally found a good therapist, he said.
Promising program cut
In 2022, Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in response to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where an 18-year-old shot and killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School. As part of the gun violence prevention law, $1 billion was earmarked for two grant programs focused on increasing mental health services offered to students while they’re in school.
In April, the federal Department of Education cut funding to those programs, canceling hundreds of millions in grants across the country, including four grants in North Carolina. Department of Education representatives have told news media outlets that language about diversity, equity and inclusion in the grant proposals contributed to the department canceling their funding. President Donald Trump’s administration has been focused on dismantling any diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
In North Carolina, grants to increase the number of school social workers and psychologists were canceled for Guilford and Wake county school systems. Grants to help train more school-based mental health professionals were also canceled at UNC and N.C. State.
Guilford County Schools officials told NC Health News earlier this year that it used its grant funding to hire a dozen mental health clinicians and contract with 35 others to provide in-person and virtual mental health services to students. The district has seen a 50 percent reduction in the number of suicide risk assessments per year.
In a Sept. 17 letter, the National Association of School Psychologists urged federal Education and Health department officials to work with them “in shaping evidence-based strategies that prioritize prevention, early intervention, and equitable access to services for all students.”
“Research consistently demonstrates that school-based mental and behavioral health services improve attendance, reduce disciplinary issues, and promote academic achievement,” Executive Director Eric Rossen and President Shawna Rader Kelly wrote in the letter. “Importantly, school mental health professionals serve as a key resource to parents and families to help them better understand and meet the needs of their children and access necessary care, both in and out of school.”
Fall 2026 opening planned
Work on the new building at the Lucy Daniels Center should take about nine months, Odjaghian said. She said it likely will be ready to accept patients by fall 2026.
The addition will be named the SECU Therapy Wing to honor the State Employees’ Credit Union Foundation’s $750,000 gift for the project.
“They have a proven track record of being able to show the work that they’re doing is effective and also their ability to triple their capacity is really what brought us here,” said Caitlin Duke, vice president-associate director of grants for the SECU Foundation.
The number of children they’ll be able to help and the area they can reach with this expansion “is just impressive,” Duke said.
The center serves children in Wake, Durham, Orange, Chatham and Johnston counties, with telehealth allowing them to reach patients elsewhere in the state, Odjaghian said.
The Lucy Daniels Center building opened in 1991 to house a school and was later adapted to make space for an outpatient clinic.
As of Oct. 13, the Lucy Daniels Center School had 18 children enrolled in pre-K through fifth grade. The program is designed for children whose social and emotional issues led to difficulties at their original schools.
The 6,000-square-foot addition will allow outpatient therapy to be housed separately from the school. However, Odjaghian said students will be able to benefit from the additional therapy and testing, as well as other services that will be offered in the outpatient clinic.
She said they’re listening to the community about what else is needed that could be part of the expanded clinic. Among ideas that have been shared are a pediatric clinic for obsessive compulsive disorder and testing for children on the autism spectrum to address long wait times.
The school could also potentially expand at some point, Odjaghian said.
“We desperately need more affordable care for special needs kids,” said Linda McDonough, co-founder of a school in Durham for kids who have developmental, emotional or behavioral issues. “The public schools just can’t do it.”
She praised the expansion and additional services planned at the Lucy Daniels Center.
“For people that go there, having it all in one place would be wonderful,” she said.
Supporters, board members and other guests take photos during the groundbreaking for the SECU Therapy Wing at the Lucy Daniels Center in Cary on Oct. 17, 2025. Credit: Jennifer Fernandez / NC Health News 
The Lucy Daniels Center in Cary plans a 6,000-square-foot addition that will allow the nonprofit mental health provider to serve more than 1,500 children annually. A model that shows how the addition will fit next to the current building is on display on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025. Credit: Jennifer Fernandez / NC Health News 
The Lucy Daniels Center in Cary held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new $4.1 million SECU Therapy Wing expansion on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025. Pictured from left are: Don Rosenblitt, founding executive director; Lucy Daniels, founder of the center and a separate foundation also named after her; and Emily Odjaghian, clinical and executive director of the center. Credit: Jennifer Fernandez / NC Health News 
The Lucy Daniels Center in Cary provides mental health services to 500 children annually, primarily in Wake and surrounding counties. Credit: Jennifer Fernandez / NC Health News 
A man walks past a sign at the Lucy Daniels Center during the groundbreaking for the SECU Therapy Wing, a $4.1 million addition to the Lucy Daniels Center in Cary on Oct. 17, 2025. 
Shovels sit at the ready ahead of the groundbreaking for the SECU Therapy Wing at the Lucy Daniels Center in Cary on Oct. 17, 2025. Credit: Jennifer Fernandez / NC Health News 
Cookies with the Lucy Daniels Center logo sit on a table with other refreshments during the groundbreaking ceremony for the SECU Therapy Wing at the Lucy Daniels Center in Cary on Oct. 17, 2025. Credit: Jennifer Fernandez / NC Health News
Find a psychiatrist
The North Carolina Psychiatric Association offers a directory of members, although the listings do not indicate if psychiatrists are taking new patients.
The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry also has a directory of members. Listings do not include whether the provider is taking new patients.
NC Medicaid recipients can search for providers, including those who are taking new patients.
What to do if you can’t find a psychiatrist
- Talk to your pediatrician or primary care doctor. Some are willing to prescribe and monitor medications for less complex mental health issues. (General practitioners in North Carolina also have the ability to get help from the NC Psychiatry Access Line for prescribing psychiatric medications and therapies.)
- Get help from your insurance company. Most insurers have lists of in-network providers or case managers that can help you get access. Or the company may also offer access to a psychiatrist through telehealth.
- Consider alternative providers. Nurse practitioners or physician’s assistants with a specialty in psychiatry can do assessments, write prescriptions and manage your medication under the supervision of a psychiatrist.
- Visit a behavioral health urgent care center or crisis clinic. They often have a psychiatrist or a psychiatric physician’s assistant or nurse practitioner available either in person or through telehealth to diagnose and assess. Some are walk-in facilities for people in need of an immediate mental health assessment and referral to resources. You can find one in your area by selecting your N.C. county on the website linked here.
— Michelle Crouch, NC Health News/Charlotte Ledger
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