Starsha Ford, DNP, PMHNP-BC

Starsha Ford is a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner who provides psychiatric assessments, medication management, and diagnostic services at our Conway location.

Starsha has been a registered nurse (RN) since 2005 and earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in May 2022.

Starsha was led to a career in mental health after years of working in the oncology and intensive care fields, where she also served in the U.S. Air Force.

“I was deeply disheartened to see how people viewed, took care of, or ignored mental health,” Starsha said. “In the ICU, it would take days for a mental health provider to show up after someone tried to commit suicide because we don’t have enough providers, or we tell someone they have cancer and then don’t follow up on how they are doing with this life-changing event mentally.”

She said more emphasis should be placed on mental health care before a crisis begins, and more opportunities need to exist for people to get care.

Starsha joined Alleviant in August of 2022 and was drawn to Alleviant because of our holistic, patient-centered approach.

A native Arkansan, she is married with three sons and a pit bull named Hagrid.