Children and adults experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis will be able to find immediate help around the clock in Herkimer when the Mohawk Valley Intensive Crisis Stabilization Center opens later this year.
The center, run by the Neighborhood Center, will be open all day every day, offering support, counseling and referrals to residents of Oneida, Herkimer, Otsego, Schoharie, Fulton and Montgomery counties. Many of those counties have few mental health resources, especially after normal office hours.
“This is about changing how we respond to crisis,” said Lisa Ferraro, the center’s director. “Instead of defaulting to emergency rooms or law enforcement, we’re creating a space focused on compassionate, specialized care that meets people where they are.”
Before the center opens, though, it needs to hire the rest of its staff, have them all on the job for a week and then have the state do a walk-through inspection, Ferraro said. The center is still looking for registered nurses, nurse practitioners, licensed social workers and substance abuse counselors — especially psychiatric nurse practitioners and nurses — with multiple shifts available.
“At the ICSC, no two days will be the same,” Ferraro said. “Our team works with individuals of all ages — from children to older adults — making a real difference during some of the most critical moments in their lives.”
The center will also have security on site around the clock. The Neighborhood Center will announce the location and hold an open house as the opening date approaches.
State regulations allow for two kinds of crisis stabilization centers: supportive and intensive. The 12 intensive crisis stabilization centers offer a higher level of care for more acute symptoms, including medication to manage withdrawal or mental health symptoms and mild to moderate detoxification services, according to state regulations.
State guidelines dictate that peer specialists — employees with lived experience in mental health or substance use — play an important role at both intensive and supportive centers.
Helio Health runs another intensive crisis stabilization center in Syracuse, the closest one to Herkimer.
A supportive crisis stabilization center run by Upstate Caring Partners opened in Utica in December. It offers similar services, except for medication and detoxification, and also remains open 24/7 365 days a year.
The New York State Office of Mental Health provided $75 million in funding to launch the 12 intensive centers as part of its efforts to improve the state’s behavioral health system by reducing the demand on emergency rooms, improving outcomes and making sure people get timely and appropriate care.
The Herkimer center is still trying to work out one important detail, Ferraro said. Intensive centers can prescribe medications, including suboxone and methadone, which are used to treat opioid addiction. But they are controlled substances and stabilization centers cannot, under New York laws, store controlled substances, she said.
And Herkimer doesn’t have any 24-hour pharmacies that could provide medications after hours. So the center is going to have to find a way to get medications delivered quickly at all hours or to get patients to an open pharmacy, Ferraro said.
But the center is already set up with everything it needs, including de-stimulation furniture, to create an environment that feels safe and comfortable, especially for kids; it isn’t scary like a hospital emergency room can be, she said. A peer specialist will be the first person to greet everyone who comes in and all staff will work to make everyone comfortable, she added.
Health care workers can find out more about the available jobs neighborhoodctr.org.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Crisis center in Herkimer will be first of its kind in Mohawk Valley
Reporting by Amy Neff Roth, Utica Observer Dispatch / Observer-Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
