Building a Mental Health Empire in Johnston County

Jonathan Breeden: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to another edition of The Best Of Johnston County Podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden.

And on today’s episode, we have the owner of One80 Counseling, Sarah Coates, and we’re going to talk to her about, how she got to Johnston County, how she started as a one-person shop, how she grew to one of the largest single mental health providers in the entire state of North Carolina in just 17 years, and what she loves most about Johnston County.

But before we do that, I want to invite all of you to like, follow, and subscribe to this podcast wherever you’re seeing it on Apple, Spotify, YouTube. LinkedIn, TikTok, Twitter, or any of the other social media pages of the Best of Johnston County podcast.

The Best of Johnston County podcast comes out every single Monday, so please come back every Monday and check for new episodes, and go back and listen to some of our previous episodes.

We’ve had a lot of great guests, and if you love Johnston County as much as I do, I think you will find most all of the guests we have exciting [00:01:00] and interesting, and I promise you, you will not listen to a single episode of this podcast without learning something about the county that you love so much, which is Johnston County.

Welcome, Sarah.

Sarah Coates: Hi, thank you.

Jonathan Breeden: Hey, no problem. So let’s start with, I know you, you know me, but I’m going to ask you because many of the listeners probably don’t. What’s your name? Where are you from?

Sarah Coates: I’m Sarah Coates, and I’m the CEO and founder of One80 Counseling, and I’m originally from Fayetteville. But I’ve been a Johnston County resident for about 23 years.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh my goodness, so where’d you go to high school in Fayetteville?

Sarah Coates: I went to Fayetteville Christian School.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Sarah Coates: In Fayetteville. And then I went on to Methodist University, also in Fayetteville. And then I went to Campbell.

Man, you haven’t gotten far.

I haven’t We went to Italy for a honeymoon. That’s probably the farthest stretch’s.

Jonathan Breeden: The farthest stretch you’ve been. That’s crazy. That’s cool. I know, I think when you went to Campbell, you ended up getting a, like a Master’s in education, right?

Sarah Coates: Yeah, it’s a master’s in education with a concentration and counseling. I started off as a school counselor at Riverwood Middle School and West Clayton, split time between there.

And while I was in [00:02:00] the schools, working in the schools for a number of years, I decided to pursue some professional certifications to do licensed professional counseling and that’s when I shifted gears and left the school system and started my own practice.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, okay. So what, I don’t know, all the different, you’ve got a bunch of letters beside your name.

What are those letters?

Sarah Coates: Like I have a master’s in education with concentration in counseling. And currently, I’m a licensed clinical mental health counselor.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. That’s what the state of North Carolina.

Sarah Coates: Yes.

Jonathan Breeden: Are you actually providing any mental health treatment now? I know you have 50 providers probably, but

Sarah Coates: We have. We have almost a hundred actually, give or take a few. Maybe I think we’re sitting around 95 right now. I see a few clients a week, I still carry a small caseload. I still like to have my feet in the water in the mental health treatment world. Not just running this paid practice.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, cool. I didn’t know that. I figured with all these employees you probably wouldn’t have time to actually provide counseling.

Sarah Coates: Yeah. And the thing about therapy is one time, once you establish relationship with a therapist and you really like them [00:03:00] and they know you, they don’t want to change.

And so I have some that I’ve seen for years and do we meet weekly? No, maybe once a month or every couple of weeks just to check in, make sure everybody’s good.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, that’s cool. So you started One80, like 2007?

Sarah Coates: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: 2000 around 2007. Right?

Sarah Coates: 2007 that’s correct.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. And you rented an office here on professional court? Right next to me. Reading law offices professional court. I was small. You were a professional court. You were small, like a little incubator here, right behind the food line at 40, 42.

I think I had a thousand square feet. You had 700 square feet.

Sarah Coates: I think it was 650 to be exact. And my husband built the desk. We bought one from Staples and I remember him putting it together in that space. We painted the walls. It was a literally one-person shop.

Jonathan Breeden: No doubt. I think I may have brought like a welcoming gift or something cause you were new to the neighborhood or whatever.

So what was your goal when you started?

Sarah Coates: My goal honestly was just to do counseling, provide counseling [00:04:00] for, and I was working with a lot of kids and adolescents at the time cause I had been in school counseling and had a passion for working with children, wanted to do more counseling.

And so really that was just my goal is just to, and honestly it was just to work part time and eventually have a family.

And be able to work a little, raise my family, and do what I loved, which was provide counseling.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Sarah Coates: But that changed.

Jonathan Breeden: Right? So when does that change? Cause of the first couple of years, it was just you.

Sarah Coates: It was me. What ironically happened was I started and then I got pregnant and so my husband and I were expecting our first child.

And I thought, Oh my gosh, what am I going to do with all these people I have? And a psychologist out of the blue reached out to me and said, Hey, I’m looking, for some space to rent. Can I come over there?

And so I met with her and I said, can you also see these clients while I’m on maternity leave? And then she just stayed.

And then another mom came, she was a mom, by the way, also working part-time. And then another mom called me happenstance, whatever, I say God, but whatever, by coincidence, another mom called me [00:05:00] and she wanted to do part-time therapy.

And so we were just sharing the small little office space. I had two small rooms. We just split up the week, however we did it. And then it just started growing from there.

And in about 2011 my husband who had worked for his dad and uncle for a long time, they closed their business and he was out of a job. And I said to my husband, we’ve got these two toddlers at home.

I can really work. And, go after it while you find another job. And that lasted about 30 seconds. I always laugh because he was like, I’ll stay home with the kids. And that lasted about 30 seconds.

And then he found another job, but by that point, we had grown out of that small space and we moved into another location just around the corner upon Commerce Drive.

And so about that time, 2011, we had about 12 providers in a much larger space and One80 just started growing from there.

Jonathan Breeden: Man, that’s hard to believe. I know Commerce Drive is for those listening is the road that goes between what is now the Dunkin Donuts and the closed gas station.

It goes back by the sleep in and you go back there and you have the car wash.

Sarah Coates: [00:06:00] That’s right.

Jonathan Breeden: April Stevens’s office is back there now. There used to be a dry cleaner. It was a Church, at one point it was a state employees’ credit union on Commerce Drive when you were there.

And then it ends right up there at Cleveland School Road behind the CVS.

And yeah, and you were, and the funny thing is you and I both looked at that same space you went into about the same time and I didn’t pull the trigger because I didn’t think I needed quite that much space.

We were all written from Joe’s Sample. Joe Sample’s a business guy, and he was

Right. He’s always wheeling and dealing. And anyway, going in that space, which turned out to be great.

So you, but you still had to make a decision at some point that you were just going to keep adding providers. I know initially it was like, Oh, there’s a friend, somebody wants part-time, but it became a structured plan.

When did it become a structured plan?

Sarah Coates: About, I’d say about 2010, it became more of a plan. And then in 11, all the shifting happened. We moved into that location.

When it became structured plan was when I recognized there are so [00:07:00] many clients seeking out mental health services around here.

There’s not many providers and how am I going to meet that need? And so clients calling in, this provider’s full, better hire another provider to meet those, the high volume of calls that was coming in.

And that’s really how I’ve just kept growing the practice. And now we have six locations of, 95 ish number of providers. And we offer in-person and telehealth visits.

Jonathan Breeden: So when you go to add a provider, do you interview them?

Sarah Coates: Yes. I still do that.

Jonathan Breeden: You still do that. Okay.

Sarah Coates: You know, I’m pretty passionate about that. I want to know the people that are representing my brand, right?

And so, could I have my director or my director of culture, or my director of operations hire?

Perhaps I could, but, I still want to have that one-on-one contact with these providers that are, I don’t know, I guess it’s just that personal touch.

I want to know who we’re putting under our umbrella to serve these clients that are in a very vulnerable state when they reach out to us.

Jonathan Breeden: So when [00:08:00] did you, at some point you end up on Shipwash Drive where you still are today, that’s one of the locations which is right off of old drug store. Still right here at 40, 42, which is now about to be 40, 36 or is it 40, 39? They’re changing 42 here.

Sarah Coates: It’s not going to be the exit number? No.

Jonathan Breeden: The road number. It’s not going to be 40-42. I think it’s going to be 39.

Sarah Coates: Oh, wow.

Jonathan Breeden: 36. Anyway.

Sarah Coates: We’ll forever call it 40.

Jonathan Breeden: I’m going to forever call it 40 42. The Highway 70 bypass, which is becoming Interstate 42.

Sarah Coates: Oh.

Jonathan Breeden: So they have to change 42 from Highway 50 to Clayton and it might be 36.

Sarah Coates: Huh.

Jonathan Breeden: Anyway, it’s gonna be 36 or 39. We talked about it with Bush Lauder on a previous episode, the best Johnston County podcast. And that happening is gonna be in February of 25.

Sarah Coates: Oh, wow. I learned something new today.

Jonathan Breeden: That’s right. Yeah. So anyway, but to me, it’s always going to be 40, 42.

So when did you get a location? I know you have six or seven locations now, but when was the first location that wasn’t the primary area right here at 40, 42?

Sarah Coates: Yes. [00:09:00] So we opened a carry location. I think it was in 2014. Open that location in 2015, I have what I call the mass exodus.

I had about 12 providers maybe 14 providers and literally like within two or three months time span half of them left and changed up some business models and business practices put some structures in place that my attorney recommended and people don’t like change, and they left and I thought, oh my goodness, it’s going to be, me, myself, and I, everybody’s leaving.

Oh, I still have a license. I can do this on my own.

And but you know what? It turned out to be the greatest blessing within a year, we had three locations and 28 providers.

And so we just kept growing. I always say it’s one of those things like you have to prune a tree for it to keep blossoming and growing.

And so I was totally fine. It worked out. Okay.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. And then, so you were the carry one, I guess is right there. I 40 Harrison Avenue.

Sarah Coates: That’s our other carry office.

So we opened our first carry office on, it was also called executive place off Kildare Road. And we were there for a few [00:10:00] years and then we took a new location off 64 right there at the carry apex line, so to speak. And then we opened the Harrison Avenue office.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. Yeah. I see.

Sarah Coates: That happened after COVID.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. I see Harrison Avenue when I go over there to go to The Chick-fil-A and the Bass Pro Shops right there across from Sass and the Umstead Hotel.

It’s a great visibility location for you for sure. When did you go to Clayton?

Sarah Coates: We opened Clayton. Oh man, you’re challenging my timeline.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Sarah Coates: Let me think.

Jonathan Breeden: I know you have one in Clayton.

Sarah Coates: We did. We opened Clayton in also after COVID.

So COVID really just helped expand our practice, to be honest. More and more people reached out obviously for mental health counseling.

It was on the forefront of everybody’s mind. And let me think here. We opened Raleigh in May of 2020 and then we opened the Harrison Avenue office in 21.

And then I think that was June of 21. And then in December of 21, we opened the Clayton office.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. So now you, and then you went to Wilmington somewhere.

Sarah Coates: And then we opened Wilmington last July. So that was July of [00:11:00] 2023?

Jonathan Breeden: Okay.

Sarah Coates: We opened that.

Jonathan Breeden: So what was your thought going that far away?

Sarah Coates: My thought was, I love Wilmington and I want to hang out in Wilmington.

Jonathan Breeden: You sound like me. I’ve thought about expanding once I get this figured out a little bit better. I think I was thinking about Wilmington, an underserved area. Fast-growing area.

Sarah Coates: Very fast growing. Also, like Johnston County, as far as like the growth and the population movement there.

And my director of operations, she came to me and said, I really want to move to the coast. I said selfishly I’m going to say, if you move to the coast, you have to help me open this office.

And so that’s what we did.

Jonathan Breeden: Oh, my goodness. That’s great. Yeah. It’s funny. I’ve had attorneys go and I had an exodus one time when I lost three out of four of the attorneys that I had at the time.

And that’s where you have to do some soul searching and they left for their own reasons.

I don’t know. It was particularly me, they all had their own reasons for what they wanted to do.

But I did have to think more about the culture of what I wanted to do, the training I was able to provide cause I was working with younger attorneys and I [00:12:00] think we do a much better job of that now.

And I’m sure you do a better job supporting your providers now than you would have done, say, 10 years ago.

Sarah Coates: Absolutely. You learn so much in business and we’re 17 years in business, right?

So you learn a whole lot the first five years. You learn a whole lot that first decade. And I think you just keep learning, run it.

Jonathan Breeden: You don’t stop learning. And the one thing that I talk about when, sometimes I go talk to lawyers about scaling and growing.

And I gave a talk back in May of this year in Charlotte to a group of lawyers and I titled it, Make A Decision. Like you just have to make a decision to be better.

And that’s whether it’s in business, whether for your mental health, whether it’s in counseling, like every day you should wake up and think, how can I be better today?

And it’ll be 1% better is fine. But just how can I be better today than I was yesterday? And the only way to be better is to make a decision to be better and don’t get in this paralysis analysis.

And I’m definitely not a counselor [00:13:00] you are, but it’s I think a lot of people get stuck in this sort of anxiety and they think about all the things that can go wrong.

And so they don’t take the first step when, if they would take the first step, it’s probably going to be fine. 95% of the stuff they’re worried about, it’s not going to happen.

And if it starts to not go well, you’re going to make a different decision before you get to whatever worst-case scenario you put in your head. And we all do this, but you have to keep making decisions to move forward.

Sarah Coates: Yeah. And you just said the thing, 95% of what you’re worrying about is not going to happen. And that’s anxiety right there in a nutshell, and it keeps people stuck from moving forward. I agree.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. And the anxiety and I was listening to, I listened to too many podcasts probably, but maybe in Mel Robbins and she was saying.

Sarah Coates: I love her.

Jonathan Breeden: Right. She was saying, her whole thing is 5,4,3,2,1.

Like just count 5,4,3,2,1. Go, get up out of bed. Don’t hit snooze. She’s a lawyer and she was not trained.

She just knew she needed to be better given where she was and all of this and who knew she would become [00:14:00] best-selling author and podcast and all that stuff over just basically kicking herself in the butt saying, I got to be better.

My family needs me to be better. I got to be better. They’d had a business go under, they lost all their money and that’s an interesting story, but yeah, but anyway, so what differentiates One80 from the other counseling out there?

Sarah Coates: All of our providers are licensed. And I think the best thing about One80 is because we’re so large, we’re just like this large referral network and we serve so many members of one family unit.

We’re not just trauma therapists or just child therapists, right?

If it’s a family unit, and maybe the mom and dad need some marriage support. We have a marriage therapist and then now their kids need support, maybe they’re going to go through a divorce.

Now we’ve got child therapists all under the same house.

And then maybe, a tragedy occurred and they need some trauma therapy. We can just keep it moving, but all under the same umbrella.

And so I think that’s the really beautiful thing about my practice is everybody’s able to be served. They don’t have [00:15:00] to go here and there and work all these different schedules.

Jonathan Breeden: So how do you deal with the conflicts and the records in a scenario like that?

Sarah Coates: We have an EHR platform. So most mental health practices now have electronic record keeping.

And of course, there’s HIPAA and there’s releases of information. You always have to get the client’s permission to share and connect with the other colleagues to talk about cases.

We just handle that obviously very professionally and ethically. And, with HIPAA in mind at all times.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah we’ve sent so many of our clients over there. I don’t know week goes by that we don’t refer somebody over there and now there’s health is out there as well.

Their online thing and it’s a little more affordable. But it’s out there and they’ve got some good providers as well.

Sarah Coates: I’m sure they do. I think a lot of us in the field. I think places like BetterHelp are difficult because those providers come and go very easily. I hear these horror stories, especially with medication providers.

They have a psychiatry appointment and then next month when they need that refill, that psychiatrist isn’t available [00:16:00] anymore because they’ve moved on to something else.

So I do think that consumers need to be very cautious about these online big tech mega platforms for mental health.

I still believe that finding someone locally and even with telehealth, you can find someone in the state, but they’re still like the local that can provide that service.

Jonathan Breeden: Right? And I know the reimbursements for those providers. It’s not very good.

Sarah Coates: Yeah. Those big conglomerates take a lot of advantage of those providers, and that’s why they turn over so much.

So a lot of people knew in the field, they’ll join like Better Help. They’ll get a quick paycheck, right?

Get their feet wet, get something going, and then move into an established practice or start their own solo practice where they can make a good living.

And so that’s why there’s so much turnover with those BetterHelp talk spaces, all those things.

Jonathan Breeden: I don’t disagree. I know the reimbursement rate is not very high for them.

But we don’t, I don’t know, even with all of your growth, I’m not convinced we have enough providers in Johnston County.

Sarah Coates: I would say that’s probably true, especially with the growth boom. We also, I think, in Johnston County [00:17:00] have a variety of socioeconomic status, right?

So there’s all these levels of people who need different types of insurance or are not able to get insurance through their employer.

So they have to get, through the exchange, or maybe they’re on Medicaid, or maybe they don’t have insurance at all. That I think is a challenge.

One80 tries to rise to that challenge, although we only take private health care insurance, like through employer systems, Blue Cross, Aetna, United, those kinds of things. We have a really strong internship program.

And so we developed that years ago. where we have these graduate students who are under supervision of licensed providers in our practices, and they are able to serve underinsured or noninsured individuals.

They’re getting their graduate hours in counseling. They’re supervised by a licensed provider, and then they’re able to provide the service to those clients that you know, have needs that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to get.

Jonathan Breeden: That’s great. I knew at one point you had a couple of providers that took Medicaid. I guess, I don’t know if you’re still doing that.

Sarah Coates: We stopped taking Medicaid in, I think, 2015. 2015 was a [00:18:00] very pivotal point, turning point in my company.

Providers left, we changed some insurance contracts. We moved, that’s when we moved to the shipwashed location. We expanded and, again, back to my printing mentality.

Sometimes you gotta let some things go to keep growing.

Jonathan Breeden: That’s cool. I’m glad that you’re able to provide because there’s a lot of people who cannot afford the services and the reimbursement rate for providers on private health insurance is not good. Yeah, it’s not that is I wish that would change.

I wish that providers would be reimbursed at a much higher rate than they are. For what we’re paying for health insurance, they can do a whole lot better.

And if you had more people getting mental health care, you’d save so much money out of hospitals and all this stuff.

And I don’t understand why the insurance company continues to undervalue mental health and not pay the providers what they’re worth.

It makes no sense to me.

Sarah Coates: Yeah. I think some insurance companies have made some good strides in that area. Some of our reimbursements are, pretty okay. But I agree, some of them are terrible and then people don’t want [00:19:00] to take that insurance.

And so then that’s a disservice to all those consumers that have that insurance.

It is, it’s a racket.

Jonathan Breeden: So what are some of the most common things y’all are working with? You’ve got thousands of clients. You treat every time a thing there is, anxiety, grief, ADHD, substance abuse, but what are the most common things that you’re seeing in your office?

Sarah Coates: Surely anxiety. I think, especially since 2020 and the pandemic, and all the fallout from that still lots of teenage mental health issues happening.

So we get lots of teen referrals, lots of kids being seen. Stress, anxiety substance use unfortunately continue to increase. So we see, quite a bit of that too.

We have a lot of, a good number, a lot is relative, right? But we have a number of licensed clinical addiction specialists across the practice.

Jonathan Breeden: And I know you’ve started getting into the substance abuse more. I know you’ve got a new program coming.

Talk a little bit about that because when I was doing a lot of criminal defense and I was doing DWIs and [00:20:00] some of the drug charges, I could have used this program that you’re about to start.

So tell us a little bit about that.

Sarah Coates: We are going to launch later this winter, no hard timeline yet because we’re doing all the backend work currently, but the plan is to launch substance abuse IOP, which is intensive outpatient programming for substance abuse, individual substance use issues.

So sometimes people, they have a substance use issue. They’re really trying to get sober and one time a week with an addictions counselor is not enough, but they’re not so high need high level that they have to be in a detox center and inpatient rehab.

They’re that middle catch-all. And a lot of times those people fall through the cracks. And so what Johnston County doesn’t have a lot of, I think there might be one in Smithfield.

But what Johnston County desperately needs as a substance abuse IOP. And so we are meeting that need and I’m planning to launch that in the Clayton office.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. And so when you’re in that program I don’t think, I don’t know if it’s changed much is why I worked with it, but you would go three or four days a week for three hours.

Sarah Coates: [00:21:00] Exactly. It’s three times a week for three hours.

Jonathan Breeden: Three times a week for three hours. Usually like Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Sarah Coates: And it’s a group setting, usually 10 to 12 participants in that track. And they’re meeting three times a week for a number of hours, learning all sorts of ways to cope and, stay sober.

Jonathan Breeden: And often being tested.

Sarah Coates: Yes, they have to go through.

Jonathan Breeden: And they have to come be tested. Yeah, that’s tremendous. We definitely need that.

Sarah Coates: We’re going to eventually be able to when it launches, we won’t be able to take insurance right away because that’s the second step.

You have to get approved by the state, start your program, and then go to the insurance and get approved through insurance.

But at some point, the goal is to be able to take all these insurances. People can be able to afford it.

Jonathan Breeden: Right? And so is that going to be at the Garner location?

Sarah Coates: Clayton, we’re launching it out of Clayton. My hope and goal is that it grows so big that we have to get a second location in Clayton to be able to just do our IOP programming.

So that’s my goal. So maybe next year you’ll hear about that.

Jonathan Breeden: Okay. That would be great. We definitely need that.

What is your opinion on [00:22:00] teenagers and cell phones?

Because that seems to be where a lot of this problem is coming from what I’m reading and what I see and I don’t allow my teenager to have a cell phone.

He has a gap phone that won’t do anything. It’ll text and it will call. Because I see the damage and I see what happens.

I’m just getting your take and you’re the expert on it. But from what I’ve seen, I don’t know that teenagers should have cell phones, at least that have, Social media and stuff.

Sarah Coates: To be honest, I think cell phones, social media, I think it ruined all of us, including adults.

That’s true. Oops. I didn’t mean to cover up my microphone, but I think it ruined all of us.

I think there was a clear shift in society when everybody started becoming focused on this instead of the people in front of them.

So I think that’s the start of it. But certainly teenagers. I have two teenagers in my house. The rule was and is no social media till 14.

Do they have cell phones? Unfortunately, in 2020, when everything shut down, my youngest was in 3rd or 4th grade, and within just a couple [00:23:00] weeks of no contact with any friends. She got very depressed. I watched it happen and it was very scary.

And unfortunately at age 10, I gave her an iPad so that she could FaceTime with her friends, right?

So that’s unfortunate because then I think it just shifted everything, right? She was able to have this electronic access.

And yes, my kids have cell phones, and I do, I think it’s impacted teenagers. I watch them. I watch my own. Snapchat constantly, they know their location of all their friends.

I hope maybe 50 years from now we’ll look back and say, that was terrible. What were we doing? And it’ll pivot the other way, swing the other way.

Jonathan Breeden: What can parents do? I understand it’s not realistic for kids, maybe not to be on social media now, given where society is, what can they do to do better with it?

Sarah Coates: Yeah, I think they can set limits, off the phone at 10 30, whatever your time frame is. Put the cell phones on the charger in the downstairs kitchen area overnight so that the kids aren’t laying in bed up on their phones all night long.

Obviously, sleep is a huge factor. I [00:24:00] think in team mental health, right?

Not getting enough sleep. And so limits on cell phone use I think it’s unrealistic for a lot of families to say no cell phone, especially, parents are working maybe late hours.

The kid rides the bus home from school. The parent wants to know what the kid made at home, right?

There’s this, who has a landline anymore? I don’t even know. I think limits on the use, limits on when kids get on social media or what platforms are even allowed on, that’s how we do it.

We titrate like you can get on social media platforms at 14, and then next year we’ll let you get on this thing.

And then, to be honest, there are some social media that were banned in my house altogether.

Jonathan Breeden: Which ones are banned in your house altogether?

Sarah Coates: TikTok, I banned TikTok for a long time. I just think, I know people love TikTok, it’s, fun and whatever. There’s a lot of tragic stuff on there. I also think it’s, I don’t know. It’s my personal thing.

I think it’s a waste of brain cells to sit there and watch people dancing all day long. I just, I’m like, I’ll do something with your brain, like just a math homework, please.

Jonathan Breeden: I can understand that. And there [00:25:00] are devices out there for parents who don’t want to give their kids an actual cell phone.

We’ve had success with my 14-year-old. He’s not happy about it. He has a gab phone. So he can text, he can call and it has three apps.

And one of the apps is the Bible app, which is great. He was like, it doesn’t have any apps. It’s got the Bible, read the Bible, and then there’s also these pinwheel phones as well.

I believe they’re called.

Sarah Coates: I haven’t even heard of that.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah, I think I’m right about that. Quote me, but I think pinwheel, which again is a phone similar to gab. It works off cell towers, it has very limited apps, no social media.

So you can maintain that contact and not have them on social media. I do think, time limits, now all of these things, you time limit, so many minutes a day, so many hours a day. I think it’s great.

Sarah Coates: I think the parental controls of what you can look at on the internet browsers, all of that stuff is available.

And it’s easy to find, you literally just search up what parental controls are and you can load them on the phones.

I don’t think it’s the cell phone [00:26:00] itself. I think it’s the social media apps that are really, the detrimental piece.

Jonathan Breeden: I don’t disagree. We, my wife would, kids have iPads where they can watch YouTube kids and watch kids play video games and stuff like that. But like you can fix it to where on the iPad, there’s no Safari.

So they can’t get anywhere other than the apps that you put on the app. I don’t think parents realize that, but you can literally.

So on my daughter’s iPad, she’s 12. There is no Safari. So she can only go to these few apps that we know are there.

None of which are social media apps to watch, shows, or whatever. But I think that’s important too. I don’t know if parents are aware of that, but you can fix it where they don’t have a Safari.

They don’t have a way to go anywhere other than the apps that you approve.

Sarah Coates: I also think it’s important for parents to know this. Your kids are smarter than you are when it comes to social media.

It’s so true that I’ll put my kids on restriction for something. And I find out they have found a backdoor and they know these backdoor tricks.

And so I think a parent is delusional if they think they’re 100% perfect locking it down. I’m [00:27:00] sorry, they just are, they’re smarter than we are when it comes to this technology.

Jonathan Breeden: And you can put at least in your house, you can put in a Disney circle, which will limit certain websites all in the house that you can only go to and can keep them away from some adult sites. You may not want them on.

I think parents have to take a proactive thing and know their child, educate themselves about, how these apps work, be looking at them, see what’s being posted, see what your child’s been texting.

Sarah Coates: I think that’s the key to monitoring your kid’s phone. Like I will grab my kid’s phone in a second and start scrolling. No. Don’t look. Oh, if you don’t want me to look, this is a problem, right?

And I start opening stuff. And I think that is what parents are so busy these days. Two working parent households, they come home, they’re exhausted from working all day.

Do they even want to be monitoring cell phones? But I do think it’s a responsibility as a parent. If you’re giving your kid a phone, you better look at it. You’re paying for it. It’s yours.

Jonathan Breeden: And we’re not going to have time on this episode, but how many cases I’ve been in where somebody has been charged with child pornography [00:28:00] because now these teenagers send nude pictures of each themselves to each other.

And we usually have, at least one of those cases going on is related to a domestic case that we have, or we’re tangentially involved in a criminal case.

We don’t do a lot of criminals anymore and that is going on almost all the time. And these kids don’t, they don’t realize it.

And the immense pressure that kids are, especially young women are into sending these pictures. And then once those pictures are sent, they can go everywhere and they often do. And that’s not good.

Sarah Coates: No. And I think it starts with the parent. This is just my personal opinion. Moms to daughters, dads to sons, having these really honest gut-wrenching conversations with these kids.

This is what’s out there and no holds barred. Just talk about it, and I think parents, sometimes they get squeamish. They don’t want to talk about all those things, but you have to.

Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. And Netflix had that, the documentary, The Social Dilemma, I watched that.

And then Amazon Prime had one and I’ve forgotten the name of it, but the one on Amazon [00:29:00] Prime was done by a group of, out of Denver, Colorado that catches, child sex predators and a lot of that documentary was interviewing groups of teenagers about these requests for nudes and all of this types of stuff.

And I hate, I’ve forgotten the name of it, but it was on Amazon probably about two years ago and maybe the childhood dilemma or something but it was really good, and gave some insight and maybe the social limit, the one on where on Netflix may still be out there.

I don’t really watch Netflix, but there is information out there. And so I think parents should educate themselves because I’m not surprised that you said, I said, what do you see more of?

And you say, I see teenagers. And that’s the truth. And when we see that in this office as well, and it’s unfortunate, but it is the society we live in now.

And it’s hard for parents. It’s hard to be a parent. It’s always been hard to be a parent, but it’s particularly hard to be a parent now, because the one thing I learned by watching those two shows was, you go to school and the bullies on the bus, you get off the bus, the bullies at his house.

Sarah Coates: That’s exactly right.

Jonathan Breeden: Now, the bullies in the child’s hand 24/7.

Sarah Coates: I agree. And this is why I [00:30:00] think kids’ mental health is impacted even greater so than ever. And that’s why we see so many kids and we’re, talking about this a minute ago, maybe Johnston County is lacking some providers.

What we’re lacking statewide is child and teen mental health providers that definitely we need more and more of those.

Jonathan Breeden: I agree. And hopefully, they’re going to be able to build that hospital in Garner. I know there’s been a fight because of the certificate of need, which I’ve said many times in this podcast, I think everybody should build whatever hospitals they want to build.

And Wake Med should be able to stop Rex for building a children’s mental health hospital in Garner because they’ve got one in Raleigh and that kind of stuff.

I think that we should just have a free market and have all the providers build as many mental health beds as possible and go from there.

And maybe with the new legislature next year, we’ll start to see some rollback of that and we’ll see more beds built because I think the providers, Recogni, UNC Health does for sure. I think Wake Med does for sure.

They recognize that this is a need, but then they [00:31:00] spend all this time fighting with each other about who’s gonna build it and where they’re gonna build it.

And that’s my territory, which is completely opposite of the free market. And that’s why I don’t think we have enough beds.

Sarah Coates: And the rate Johnston County is growing. People that live in Johnson County should be able to get their medical and mental health needs met in Johnston County.

They shouldn’t have to drive to Raleigh 30 minutes in traffic at the end of the day, whatever the deal is. And so I think I agree, let’s just keep expanding here.

Jonathan Breeden: Let’s hope so. And I think we’re going to see some more, with the copper district in Clayton, that’s going to have medical space.

They’re not, they just opened up the Indian scope. I can’t say it. Center in Clayton next to the hospital there.

I wish I could say that word.

Sarah Coates: Endoscopy.

Jonathan Breeden: That’s it. Thank you for saying it because I cannot say it. That’s now open. That’s going to provide a lot of new providers here in Clayton as well. And so that’s great.

So anyway I can talk to Sarah Coates all day. Usually when her and I start talking two hours go by this podcast, isn’t two hours.

The last question I ask everybody is what do you love most about Johnston County?

Sarah Coates: Johnston County. What I love most about Johnston County?

[00:32:00] I don’t know, it’s home now. I’ve been here for 23 years. Almost longer than I lived in the other place. I like the variety that Johnston County brings.

I like, I’m a country girl. I still like that flow, and I have cows in my backyard or I can drive, up the road to the grocery stores.

And so I like, I think that’s the variety that Johnston County still.

You can walk out in the evening and you can see the sunset. If you’re sitting in Raleigh somewhere and you walk in your backyard, you’re probably not going to be able to see the sunset. That is why I love Johnston County.

Jonathan Breeden: That’s great. It’s still rural enough. Some of the big city things, but it’s rural enough. Everybody still knows each other or you’ll know somebody anyway.

Sarah Coates: Yeah.

Jonathan Breeden: And that’s tremendous. If somebody wants to get in touch with y’all, how’s the way to get in touch with y’all?

Sarah Coates: Our website is One80NC.com. So that’s O N E 8 0, the number, nc. com. And you’ll have access to all of our information.

We provide medication management services now. Of course, we provide mental health therapy for all age ranges.

We take a lot of different insurances [00:33:00] and we also do some testing, bariatric testing, psychological evaluations, ADHD testing, and then later, hopefully this winter, out of Johnston County, we’ll be launching the IOP programming.

Jonathan Breeden: I’m so glad that it has grown to what it is and you have all these services because somebody needed to do it.

And I’m glad it’s our local resident that’s done it that cares about this community and wants to do it the right way. I’ve always said that. I’ve told you that I’m going to tell everybody on this podcast.

It is tremendous that it’s there every provider I’ve dealt with over there in the last 17 years has done their absolute best.

They didn’t always see it my client’s way, but they’ve always done it best. They’ve had their clients, particularly the children’s best interests at heart. And that’s what ultimately matters.

It’s why I choose to do family law, they help children. It’s why you do a lot of help a lot of children. There’s nothing you can do better than help children in this world.

Sarah Coates: For sure, for the next generation. Right?

Jonathan Breeden: That’s it.

Sarah Coates: That’s the legacy.

Jonathan Breeden: And they didn’t ask for any of this either. So anyway, and we’ll probably have to have Sarah back on [00:34:00] because I didn’t even get into personality disorders and different psychological disorders.

We’ll definitely have her back on. Maybe in a few months and we’ll talk about those because I think that would be fascinating. I think you would find that insightful too.

So anyway, anyway, please like subscribe, or follow, leave us a review. If you like this podcast, share it with your friends or family members, tag us on your Instagram stories, the best of Johnston County podcast.

That’s how we’ll grow this podcast so more people will become aware of it and they’ll learn more about why you and us love Johnston County.

Until next time. I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden.