New Hanover County partnered with E&V Strategic Communications to create Help Right Here, an online platform that makes it easier for residents to find trusted mental health and substance use resources.
E&V combined an accessible resource with community outreach to help residents take the first step toward support, driving thousands of visits and more than 200 completed resource-matching questionnaires in the platform’s first months.
New Hanover County saw its opioid settlement as an opportunity to make a lasting investment in the community’s behavioral health system. Through its strategic planning process, the county identified a need to better connect residents with existing resources and strengthen the network of providers behind them.
New Hanover County offers a wide range of mental health and substance use resources, but many residents do not know of the support available, understand which provider could meet their needs, or feel comfortable asking for help. The challenge wasn’t simply a lack of services – it was helping people find the right services at the right time.
The county needed a trusted, community-wide resource that could help people navigate local services, while educating residents, providers, and community stakeholders about available services.
The Help Right Here program and online platform connect residents to more than 65 local providers, programs, and community partners for mental health, substance use disorder, and essential services.
E&V helped organize those services into a centralized, accessible resource. The agency developed the Help Right Here brand, messaging, and website around the idea that resources should be simple to find and easy to understand.
The platform includes:
Creating the resource was only the first step. For Help Right Here to make a meaningful difference, residents needed to know it existed, trust the information it provided, and recognize it as a place to look for support.
E&V developed and coordinated a community-wide rollout that used trusted local partners and targeted outreach to bring the resource to residents. It included:
Help Right Here quickly began connecting residents with personalized support.
During its first months, thousands of people visited the platform, and more than 200 users completed resource-matching questionnaires on the Help Right Here website. Local media coverage, community partnerships, and targeted outreach helped introduce the resource across New Hanover County.
Website data show 13,000 active users and 31,000 site views from September 2025 through June 2026. Social media ads generated more than 1 million impressions between Dec. 12, 2025, and Feb. 15, 2026.
That early engagement demonstrated that Help Right Here was addressing a genuine need: providing a clear and approachable starting point for people navigating a complicated system.
In July 2026, Help Right Here earned the National Association of Counties’ Best in Category Achievement Award for Civic Education and Public Information.
“This is an incredible honor, as we competed with counties nationwide to highlight projects across the full spectrum of county government services, and this award is specific to Civic Engagement and Public Information,” New Hanover County wrote about receiving the award.
Counties across the country are determining how to turn opioid settlement funding and other public investments into lasting community benefits. New Hanover County’s experience demonstrates that funding services are only part of the equation.
Help Right Here brings together strategic planning, provider engagement, accessible technology, clear communication, and sustained community outreach. By approaching those elements as one connected effort, New Hanover County created more than an awareness campaign or online directory. It created a stronger bridge between residents and the organizations ready to help them.
