Melina Arrowood, the chief operating officer of Sweeten Creek Mental Health and Wellness Center, is not immune to struggle. She was just a teenager visiting her older cousin and her two small children when they were involved in a head-on collision that took the lives of her cousin and her cousin’s baby. This traumatic loss and the kind eyes and compassionate words of a hospital nurse, forever shaped her career path and perspective on life. “Everyone has a story to share that we don’t know about,” Melina says. “Mental health is everywhere.”

 

She continues, “We all have struggle. Mental health affects all of us in some capacity—whether it’s anxiety or depression—it’s always fascinating to me that people can talk openly about diabetes, cancer, heart disease, but when it comes to mental health, there’s such a stigma that people go silent and view it as personal failure. Maybe it’s because people don’t know how to help or what to do, but when we can talk openly and honestly, we can help one another. Mental health isn’t embarrassing; it is a medical issue.”

 

Creating safe places where people can be vulnerable and talk openly without the fear of being judged is an instrumental pathway to improving the mental health of our community, she says.

Mission Hospital opened the Sweeten Creek Mental Health Wellness Center, an almost 85,000-square-foot building on 25 acres in Asheville, North Carolina in November 2023. Before they broke ground, Melina was involved in selecting the right location and leading the design of the property and facility. The 120-bed center provides intensive mental health services for youth, adolescents, adults and seniors.

 

“We have an intensive outpatient program where a client comes three hours a day, three days a week, or a partial hospitalization program where a client comes for five hours of programming a day, five days a week for two or three weeks,” she says. They also provide inpatient care for those in crisis. “There’s both individual cognitive therapy as well as group therapy, where clients learn coping skills with a variety of treatment modalities including pet therapy, music therapy and activity therapy, like gardening,” Melina says.

 

Melina started her career in nursing as an ER tech for Mission Hospital in 2007. She was quickly promoted to team lead, nursing supervisor and then manager. She worked in a myriad of leadership roles including the Director of Acute Care Nursing at Mission Hospital. In 2018, Arrowood moved to Mission’s Behavioral Health department.

 

Located less than 3 miles from Mission Hospital, Melina’s team of professionals includes nurses, psychiatrists, therapists and behavioral specialists equipped to treat depression, anxiety, grief and loss, mood disorders, suicidal ideation, mania, trauma and PTSD.

 

Melina knows going about our days with more empathy and kindness will improve the mental health and wellbeing of our entire community. “We’ve all been through a lot," she says. "The pandemic, the hurricane, economically and politically,” she says. “We all need kindness and grace,” Melina says. “Being mean to the mentally ill doesn’t help. Mentally ill people need people to be kind to them.”

 

The Sweeten Creek Mental Health and Wellness Center is a nurturing environment featuring beautiful gardens, a basketball court, a cafeteria with delicious food (where clients have the autonomy to choose what they want to eat), a gym, a playground for kids and enclosed courtyards.

 

It's a safe haven for those feeling overwhelmed, helpless or hopeless, clients can be referred by a doctor or use a self-referral online tool by going to missionhealth.org/BH its and scheduling a quick 15-minute patient assessment.

 

“To have a less divisive world, we have to start with the basics,” Melina says. “We need to be kind to one another. Spend quality time together, talk to each other while we assume the best and give each other the benefit of the doubt,” she says.

 

The digital world takes a toll, Melina says. “While the news isn’t new, it’s in our face all the time. We now have access to everyone and everyone’s opinions and thoughts. Our world is complex and the constant feedback can overwhelm our brains and make things difficult to process. We now have so many digital conversations and less conversations face-to-face,” she says.

 

“Take time to listen to people’s stories. It’s okay to not feel okay,” she says. “We can talk about hard things and we need more spaces where stories can be shared.”                                                                                                                   

 

Go to missionhealth.org/BH to schedule a 15-minute patient consultation for mental health services.

 

 

With 90 patients the night Hurricane Helene began to hit WNC, Melina says her team huddled together and figured out how to take care of everyone with the infrastructure's loss of power and water. “We kept everyone calm and safe,” she says.

 

"HCA Healthcare was life-saving, coming to us with a gas station for all HCA Healthcare employees" Melina says. "This was a vital resource, allowing people to work and care for others or to make it home." The Sweeten Creek Mental Health and Wellness Center became a hub for Mission Hospital employees after the storm, providing a mega mart grocery store, diapers, animal food and more.

 

“Members on my team lost everything—including their homes—and stayed here and helped others,” Melina says. “I can never put into words how incredible my team is and how we all supported each other.”