From his early career as a Texas minister to the nearly five-decades he spent as a leader in Northwest Arkansas behavioral health, David L. Williams III, PhD, of Fayetteville dedicated his life to helping others find solace and support when they needed it most. Williams died this week at age 84, but the legacy he leaves behind will continue to help Arkansans.
Williams came to Northwest Arkansas in 1977 to serve as president and CEO of Ozark Guidance Center, a nonprofit behavioral health center now known as Arisa Health. Over the next 30 years in that role, he adopted new and innovative practices to improve quality of care such as assertive community treatment, intensive family intervention, jail-based services, and supportive housing programs. Williams also worked as an advocate to advance the treatment of people with mental illness in the state.
The National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare honored Williams in 2008 with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Williams also received the Stockburger Lifetime Achievement Award from the Mental Health Council and the University of Arkansas’s Honorary Social Worker of the Year Award. In 2021, the ACHI Health Policy Board honored Williams with the Dr. Tom Bruce Arkansas Health Impact Award. Upon accepting the award, Williams said his dream was to “make community mental health services accessible, of great quality, and affordable.”
Williams saw his work in mental health as an extension of his foundation in pastoral care. Following his retirement, he worked for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Psychiatric Research Institute’s Northwest Arkansas clinic, where he was instrumental in reestablishing inpatient psychiatric services to the region after a significant period without local acute care for adults with serious mental illness. In 2010, he helped lead local community representatives in developing an update to the Northwest Arkansas Adult Acute Care Mental Health Plan.
“Behavioral health care in Arkansas, especially in Northwest Arkansas, would look very different today if not for the leadership and far-ranging influence of Dr. Williams,” said ACHI Interim President and CEO Craig Wilson. “He truly maintained a lifelong commitment to improving the health of Arkansans.”
A funeral service will be held for Dr. Williams at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville on March 17 at 3 p.m.
