Stillwell Athens, a locally founded mental health practice serving young adults and the greater Athens community, has expanded its services with an Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) designed specifically for young adults ages 18–30.

Founded by longtime mental health professionals Danielle Hava, LCSW, and Dan McDougal, Stillwell Athens brings together decades of experience in clinical care, mental health program development, operations, and leadership. After years of working together in higher levels of care, Hava and McDougal shared a vision of bringing that experience and infrastructure into a more flexible, community-based setting. They saw a particular gap for young adults who need more support than traditional weekly therapy but do not necessarily need hospitalization or residential treatment, or to step away from school, work, and daily life to get the support they need.

“In a university community like Athens, we see so many bright, high-achieving young adults with big dreams and goals for themselves, and often families who have equally big hopes for them,” said Hava. “They’re navigating academics, careers, relationships, identity and the transition into adulthood, and the pressure to succeed can be tremendous. We’re also seeing young adults struggling with increasingly serious mental health concerns, including suicidal thoughts. We wanted to build something that could meet them where they actually are, provide meaningful support before things escalate further, and help them stay connected to the lives and futures they’re working so hard to build.”

Stillwell Athens has grown into a multidisciplinary practice offering individual therapy, psychiatry and medication management, executive function and academic coaching, recovery and sobriety coaching, nutrition counseling with a team of dietitians, and a young-adult Intensive Outpatient Program.

The IOP was intentionally structured around the schedules of college students and working young adults. Early-morning telehealth and evening in-person programming allow participants to receive a higher level of mental health support while continuing to attend classes, work and remain involved in their daily lives.

The program serves young adults experiencing mental health and co-occurring substance use concerns who are stable in the community but may benefit from more structure and support than weekly outpatient therapy alone. Care includes small therapy groups, individual therapy, psychiatric evaluation and medication management, crisis-prevention planning, and coaching support. Stillwell currently operates as an out-of-network provider, and clients with out-of-network benefits may be eligible for partial reimbursement from their insurance plans. The practice is also actively working toward becoming in-network with select insurance carriers to make this level of care more accessible.

For Hava and McDougal, Stillwell represents a natural evolution of years spent working together in mental health treatment, program development and leadership. McDougal brings more than two decades of experience building and operating treatment programs, while Hava brings a clinical social work background alongside years of experience leading programs, developing services and working directly with clients and families.

“We’ve spent years seeing what works in mental health care, where people tend to fall through the cracks, and how important it is to have the right level of support at the right time,” Hava said. “When you step back and look at Athens, the need is striking. UGA alone has more than 43,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students, alongside thousands of faculty and staff, and that doesn’t even account for students at other area colleges or the growing population of young professionals who call Athens home. We saw this incredibly vibrant community of ambitious young adults navigating one of the most demanding and formative periods of their lives, yet an opportunity remained for mental health services built specifically around them. That’s what excited us about creating Stillwell here: taking everything we’ve learned over decades in this field and building a place that understands not only mental health, but what it actually feels like to be a young adult trying to build a life.”

That has meant thinking beyond any single service or level of care. Stillwell has intentionally developed a continuum that includes traditional outpatient therapy, psychiatry, executive function and academic coaching, recovery coaching, nutrition support, and an Intensive Outpatient Program for young adults who need greater structure and clinical support.

For Hava and McDougal, growing Stillwell has also meant building a locally owned mental health organization that can evolve alongside the needs of Athens. 

“We don't want to duplicate the incredible work that's already happening here,” Hava said. “We want to be part of the larger mental health community in Athens. That means having strong relationships with university resources, therapists, physicians, hospitals and other providers so that when someone needs something different or something more, we can work together to figure out what comes next.”

Young adulthood rarely fits neatly into a single diagnosis, challenge, or type of support. Someone may be managing anxiety or depression while also struggling with executive functioning, academics, relationships, substance use, nutrition, motivation, or simply figuring out how to manage life independently. Stillwell was intentionally built to address those needs in one place, with providers across disciplines collaborating rather than working in isolation.

“We want people to feel like they can come to Stillwell with whatever they’re navigating and we’ll help them figure out what support makes sense,” Hava said. “That might be individual therapy, executive functioning or life skills coaching, recovery support, psychiatry, nutrition counseling, our IOP, or a combination of services. Because our providers work together, we’re able to look at the whole person rather than treating each challenge separately.”

“We also know we won’t always be the right answer and that’s important to us too. We want clients, families and other professionals to be able to call us when they’re trying to figure out what comes next. If the right support exists somewhere else, we’ll help them find it. The goal is getting people connected to the care they actually need.”

For Hava and McDougal, that philosophy is central to what they are building: a mental health organization rooted in Athens, informed by decades of experience in the field, and designed to help young adults access the right level of support while remaining connected to their goals, relationships and lives.