Three Things To Read This Week
1. New Safer Cities Polling On Crisis Stabilization Centers
To gauge public support for Crisis Stabilization Centers as part of a city’s public safety infrastructure, Safer Cities recently conducted a national survey of 2,503 registered voters.
First, we defined crisis stabilization centers as “specialized facilities designed to provide immediate support to individuals experiencing acute mental health or substance use crises.” Each center, we explained, “is staffed with trained mental health professionals, provides a short-term place to stay while the person stabilizes, and connects the person with longer-term care options.”
We then provided participants with “reasons for implementing crisis stabilization centers as a public safety policy” that a city might consider, and then asked them to tell us “how convincing, if at all” each of those reasons are. Here are the three most persuasive arguments:
+70 Net Effective (83% to 13%): “Jails are not ideal locations to provide mental health care. Thus, people with mental illness frequently cycle through jail over and over again because their underlying mental illness persists. Crisis stabilization centers break this cycle by addressing acute mental health needs and connecting the person to longer-term care.”
+69 Net Effective (83% to 14%): “Emergency rooms cannot serve as a backstop for a broken mental health system. Crisis stabilization centers ease the burden on overcrowded emergency rooms that need the space to treat heart attacks, gunshot wounds, and burst appendixes.”
+58 Net Effective (77% to 19%): “Crisis stabilization centers ease the burden on overcrowded jails, which is important because overcrowding creates a dangerous environment for both the guards who work in jails and the people who are confined in them.”
2. New Crisis Stabilization Centers Launching Around The Country
In Salt Lake City, “First Of Its Kind Not Just In Utah, But Also In The U.S.” Mental Health Crisis Center Is Already Helping “An Average Of 22 To 25 Per Day,” Since Opening Two Months Ago. For KSLTV, Emma Benson reports on the new Huntsman Mental Health Institute’s hospital at the University of Utah’s Research Park, where “since [opening on March 31], around 1,300 people have come through the doors to get help — an average of 22 to 25 per day,” quickly “meeting a critical need” for mental health care in the city. As the Salt Lake Tribune details, local leaders expect the $64 million center to “offer better crisis care to more people and take pressure off hospital emergency rooms” and jails “that are not equipped to handle mental health crises.” Here’s more on the center’s functions and staffing from the Tribune:
“The comprehensive center will offer around-the-clock care to anyone who walks through its doors, is referred there or arrives with emergency responders.”
The facility will “host 200 mental health professionals providing care and expects to serve almost 10,000 patients annually.”
For inpatient care, the center “will be able to handle about 45 people for crisis stabilization care that lasts less than 23 hours and two dozen people for stays that average seven days in length.”
“The combination of daylong care, short-term stays, continuing outpatient services and on-site clinics that deal with physical ailments and legal challenges make [the center] the first of its kind not just in Utah, but also in the United States.”
New West Texas Mental Health Center’s “Goal Is To Prevent Individuals Needing [Mental Health] Help From Ending Up In Jail Or An Emergency Room, Where The Appropriate Treatment May Not Be Available,” Paul Harris reports for SanAngeloLive. The new center, located in San Angelo, is equipped with a mobile crisis response unit, and various crisis stabilization services—here’s more from the county on the center’s full set of functions:
“Mobile Crisis Outreach Team is made up of an array of qualified and highly trained mental health professionals who are available for immediate response 24 hours a day throughout our 7 counties… [and] provides services where the crisis is taking place; this can include your home setting, school, the local emergency room, places of business, or anywhere within the community.”
“Crisis Respite Unit … assists individuals in crisis, through assessments and evaluations to determine the most suitable care plan for recovery. The average length of stay for individuals is 7 days, which includes linking to resources, providing skills training, group therapy, and psychiatric stabilization for individuals to return back to their community successfully.”
“Community Based Inpatient Crisis Stabilization … assists a person through a crisis, when they are presenting as an imminent danger to self or others, or at risk of continued decline of mental health.”
Steven Garlock, the director of the center, explained to Fox News in West Texas that before the facility opened and provided mental health treatment “about 50 people a month were taken to either jail or the emergency room when they experienced a mental health crisis…. [but now] law enforcement has really started to buy into this, that there’s another route to change. It’s not just incarceration and back on the street. We’re able to intervene and address those [mental health] needs that they have.”
“Hawaii’s First Psychiatric Crisis Center Helps Take Burden Off ERs, Police.” For Hawaii News Now, Allyson Blair reports on the new Iwilei Behavioral Health Crisis Center in Honolulu, which functions as “an urgent care for psychiatric treatment catered to people who’ve been determined to be a danger to themselves and/or those around them” with a trained medical staff providing “recovery care with trauma-informed specialists… psychiatric providers and caseworkers.”
Dr. Chad Koyanagi, medical director for state’s Department of Health’s Mental Health Division who oversees the new facility, explained that part of the goal here is to get the right care to patients, while “getting police back to the streets to fight crime.” Dr. Koyanagi explained to the news station that before the center opened, “a police officer could end up waiting hours with a patient … pulling them away from their primary duties… [but, now patients] can get services quite quickly [and officers] can be back to the beat in like five or 10 minutes.”In Tennessee, Clarksville Opens “First Walk-In Center And Crisis Stabilization Unit.” For Clarksville Now, Chris Smith reports on the new facility, a first of its kind in Clarksville, which “provides immediate, around-the-clock support for adults 18 and older experiencing mental health crises… [where] individuals can stay for three to five days for medication management, therapy and connections to ongoing resources.” Clarksville Police Chief Ty Burdine, a champion of the new center, explained to News5 that the facility doesn’t just provide appropriate mental health care to people in the community, it’s “also benefit local law enforcement… ‘[because] often times the police are the first ones to respond to someone in crisis and we want to get them the best care that they can’… the facility will help streamline the process of connecting individuals to appropriate care while allowing officers to return to other duties more quickly.”
3. New Research: “Characterizing Crisis Services Offered by Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics.”
Researchers from New York University’s School of Public Health published in the scientific journal Psychiatric Services in Advance, a new, and first of its kind, survey of 247 active behavioral health clinics around the country in an effort to examine and document the various services that established centers are providing to meet the needs of patients, as “officials across different levels of governments [are launching crisis centers] as an integral component of improving robust crisis systems,” researchers note. The full research is worth reading, but here are three key findings:
Widespread Adoption Of Full Crisis Care Model: Most clinics around the country “provided crisis call lines (84%), mobile crisis response (79%), and crisis stabilization (82%) directly.”
Filling Gaps Where Local Infrastructure Falls Short: “Direct delivery of such services suggests… [crisis centers are] fulfilling demand unmet by the existing crisis infrastructure in its service area.”
Higher Staffing Levels Enable Better Service Delivery: “The number of [clinics] employees per 1,000 people… was significantly and positively associated with whether a [clinics] directly provided mobile crisis response and crisis stabilization.”
Related: For a deeper dive on crisis stabilization centers and the role they play in a modern public safety infrastructure, check out Psychiatric Times’ helpful explainer about these care facilities, which the authors note, “have a key role to play in addressing this rise in mental health crises at the point of need.” The entire article is worth your time, but here are the key takeaways:
Crisis stabilization centers relieve pressure on emergency departments and jails while improving care for people in psychiatric crisis: “Crisis stabilization centers provide immediate, compassionate care for mental health crises, reducing emergency department congestion and specially trained providers can set the course for an individual’s recovery…[Further,] first responders can divert those having a critical mental health episode to a crisis stabilization center rather than to an emergency department or law enforcement setting.”
The environment and design of these centers are built around safety and dignity and are less costly than a hospital. “These subacute environments are a less expensive alternative to an inpatient psychiatric unit in a hospital… [and the designed] environments can help ease the patient’s stress… [centers] are staffed with specially trained psychiatric nurses, social workers, and providers…. Their homelike and hospitality-oriented dormitory-style rooms give some privacy and reinforce dignity.. The model… focuses on treating patients in a calming, living room setting with artwork, natural light, and sensory rooms.”
Crisis stabilization centers offer rapid, personalized care that de-escalates crises and starts recovery immediately. “Delay of treatment can result in trauma, so speed of assessment and immediate access to care is key… The center’s care team can admit a new patient… and assess them immediately … [so] patients spend less than 24 hours in an observation area, as the care team gets more information to understand the nature of their crisis… Those who are in crisis but do not need continued observation and patient care can use outpatient spaces for transitional care and various forms of therapy.”
