CentrePointe Counseling Center

First Baptist Church has opened the CentrePointe Counseling Center to serve the needs of the Cambridge community. Richard Eckardt, LCSW-C, is the center’s counselor.

For appointments, referrals or information regarding services, please contact Mr. Eckardt through the CentrePointe Counseling number 1-800-491-5369, extension 104. He will be taking appointments on Mondays and Tuesdays of each week, with some evening appointments as requested. The center is working to formalize financial arrangements with the various health provider systems.

Click here for directions and a location map.

For more information about CentrePointe Counseling, click here.

Counselor Richard Eckardt

Mr. Richard Eckardt, Dick to his friends, is a licensed certified clinical social worker with over 35 years of experience in mental health. Mr. Eckardt is married and has helped to raise three sons, two of whom are career naval officers after graduation from the United States Naval Academy. His third son is a custom home builder and remodeler. All are active in their local churches. Mr. Eckardt is married to Addie Eckardt, a delegate to the Maryland General Assembly.

Mr. Eckardt graduated from Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, and spent two years at Eastern Baptist Seminary in Philadelphia. Dick came to know Jesus Christ as Savior in his high school years while involved with “Young Life”, a Christian group with the goal to reach unchurched and disinterested middle and high school youth. After college and seminary, he and Addie became involved with Young Life in the Baltimore area and later served as the camp managers of a Young Life camp on Padre Island in Texas. When hurricane “Celia” severely damaged the camp structures, friends living in Cambridge invited Dick and Addie to come and join the mental health community at the Eastern Shore Hospital Center. Dick spent 26 years at ESHC and another ten with various mental health agencies around the Eastern Shore, including a position conducting mental health evaluations for the court system.

Mr. Eckardt indicated that, while there were opportunities in the public mental health system, as well as in private agencies, to address the spiritual needs of clients, there were at the same time built in restrictions on the freedom to do this, usually based on the familiar "separation of church and state." He added, "When people are going through struggles, they need the spiritual connection to enhance the healing process." He believes that's the beauty of the focus at CentrePointe - the deliberate attention paid to the spiritual dimensions of a person’s life.