It started with an offhand comment in a staff meeting nearly a decade ago. The team at Mountain Child Advocacy Center (CAC) was troubleshooting a familiar challenge: getting young clients and their caregivers to therapy appointments.
For many families, especially those experiencing poverty or living in rural communities, challenges such as transportation hurdles, inflexible work schedules and scarce childcare made attendance difficult. Often, telehealth also wasn’t an option without ample phone minutes to use during online sessions.
Betsy Hurd, Mountain CAC clinical lead and therapist, recalled staff members recounting missed sessions, no-shows or makeshift meetings in less-than-ideal settings. “Then someone said, ‘If we only had a mobile unit, we could go to them,’” she said. “Once that idea came up, we couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
Mountain CAC serves children who have experienced or been impacted by crime, and increasingly, children who have experienced multiple traumatic events. Access to therapeutic services can be vital to long-term recovery. Without it, the effects of trauma can show up at home, in relationships and in academic performance.
“Our goal is to return children to a normal developmental trajectory,” Hurd said. “We want that because it’s going to show up for the rest of their lives. This makes completing therapy just as important as starting it.”
A different kind of support
While the proposed solution generated team excitement, it also came with a caveat: Mountain CAC would need significant resources and fundraising bandwidth to bring the idea to fruition.
“Identifying the gap was easy. Trying to find and apply for the right grants — that was challenging,” said Carla Jones, Mountain CAC executive director. “Initially I had this feeling of stress. How are we going to do this? And how are we going to sustain it?”
Answers emerged in 2024, when Mountain CAC applied to Dogwood Health Trust’s Leverage Fund, which provides free professional grant-writing support to pursue funding from sources outside of Dogwood. Since 2019, the Leverage Fund has helped more than 150 Western North Carolina nonprofits and government organizations secure more than $170 million in outside grant funding.
Today, Jones is thrilled to be part of this success after applying to the Leverage Fund and securing grant-writing support. The result was three new grant awards from external funders totaling more than $1.2 million.
Mountain CAC purchased a Ford Transit-350 High Roof Van outfitted as a mobile therapy unit. Funding will also support the staff necessary to run the program, expanding access to services for families in Buncombe County and nearby rural communities, including Madison County.
“This is a huge step in our growth and in the ability to serve young children,” Jones emphasized. “The only way we’re going to scale and reach more children and families in our community is if we take this stuff on. It’s been so exciting, and it feels so good.”
Moving mountains at Mountain CAC
At Mountain CAC, a nearly decade-old idea is now a funded plan. The mobile unit and funding for an additional therapist will reach roughly 50 additional children each year, beginning this spring. New funding will also build capacity through the hire of a program manager and bilingual family advocate who will strengthen case management and round out the clinical team.
Additional benefits can’t be measured in dollars. Jones said working with her grant-writing partners helped Mountain CAC strengthen its approach to data and organizational planning. The additional bandwidth also enabled her to spend her time differently and freed up leaders to focus on high-level strategy and partnerships.
“I could take a gigantic step back,” Jones reflected. “I got to see everything from the balcony because I wasn’t spending day and night writing grants. I was able instead to take time to talk to community partners about our idea. Having the freedom to reallocate my time towards what really matters changed the lens for us as an agency into more intentionality,” she said.
Ultimately, that growth means Mountain CAC can reach more children and families with trauma therapy — including those for whom getting to an appointment has historically been a barrier.
“The need is very high,” Hurd remarked, “but once we can get to children that need trauma treatment, we see kids get better. The impact over the course of their lives and future generations’ lives is huge.”
For Jones, that is the possibility that makes the investment so meaningful. “The Leverage Fund has been a huge part of stabilization, success and growth,” she reflected. “It’s just so exciting when you can press the accelerator and move good ideas forward — it’s a big deal.”
