King’s Daughters Medical Center will have a ribbon cutting and open house at its new KDMC Behavioral Wellness Center Friday from 8-9:30 a.m.

The facility is located at 439 N. Jackson Street Suite D. Providers  Dr. David Richardson, Katherine C. Flynn and Crystal Wilson will be on hand for the event.

Richardson is a board-certified psychiatrist who has practiced since 1992 in Jackson, where he received his medical degree from the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

He works with adults, including geriatric patients. Joining him in the clinic are two board-certified psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioners, Wilson and Flynn. Flynn specializes in pediatric and adolescent patients.

Richardson said he has long recognized a need for more counseling and psychiatric medication and intervention services in the community. Some patients, he said, drove an hour from the Brookhaven area to see him in Jackson. Now those patients can stay right here at home for their treatment.

“Most of my practice involves addiction work and depression and anxiety in adults,” he said. “I also have a very strong interest in working with people with eating disorders and patients that are victims of abuse.”

Medication management is among the KDMC Behavioral Wellness Center’s services. As a psychiatrist, Richardson is a medical doctor, so he can prescribe medication. He has experience with individual therapy, group therapy and intensive outpatient programs.

“One of the biggest problems with mental and psychiatric care is that there is a stigma,” Richardson said. “Even patients themselves have a hard time conceptualizing something they can’t see or feel. A lot of those people go untreated.

“No one is immune from these conditions,” he said. “The good news is, they are treatable.”

KDMC Director of Marketing David Culpepper said the behavioral wellness center covers a “broad stroke” of conditions, and focuses on regular checkups and medication regulation for patients with depression, anxiety, post traumatic disorders and other conditions. Richardson is a psychiatrist, and while behavioral health is not the same as mental health — though there is overlap between the two — the goal of the wellness center is to help local patients receive behavioral health care at home and help them remain “plugged-in” to their lives and families, Culpepper said.

The center opened last year.