What's happening at NorthStar.
We have submitted an application for State Opioid Response funding that would allow us to add medication-assisted treatment to our substance use services, bringing four additional prescribers onto the team. Award decisions are expected later this year.
“Every week we assess someone who would do better with medication as part of their treatment, and right now we have to refer them somewhere else,” said Sara Thompson, Director of Clinical Operations. “We would rather keep them with the team that already knows them.”
Beginning this month, our Detroit office is open until 7:00pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The change follows patient feedback that standard business hours were the single biggest barrier to keeping appointments, particularly for people working shifts.
NorthStar has signed a letter of intent with a smaller behavioral health practice in Gratiot County, with the goal of completing the agreement around the end of the year. The practice's nine staff would join NorthStar, and its patients would continue seeing the same clinicians they see today.
Our leadership team has set out a growth plan for the next five years that includes expanding substance use services, opening a second Michigan location in Grand Rapids, and standardizing how we work across sites so that patients get the same experience wherever they are seen.
“We are planning for the organization we expect to be in 2030, not the one we are today,” said founder Neil Kowalski.
Our peer recovery support program, launched in 2020, has now worked with more than 900 individuals. Peer specialists remain among the most requested members of our team — a reminder that credibility in this work often comes from having been there yourself.
We have added new skills, trauma and family support groups across both our mental health and substance use programs, increasing weekly group capacity by roughly a third.
What began in 2014 with six providers in a single suite now serves more than 4,000 people a year. Thank you to the patients, families and community partners who got us here.
Our school-based counseling program, which began in 2022, now operates at three schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Students are seen during the school day, removing the transportation barrier that keeps many families from getting care at all.
Call (313) 367-1127 or send a request and we’ll get back to you the same business day.