FOND DU LAC – Local crisis management will adjust with the loss of the Fond du Lac County Acute Psychiatric Unit inpatient mental health facility on Jan. 1.
Years of a declining daily census and staffing challenges forced the Fond du Lac County Department of Human Services to consider the closure. The department will continue to serve county residents with mental illnesses, substance abuse issues or developmental disorders, though this will require enhancing crisis intervention services.
Human Services Director Geri Vanevenhoven recommended in April to add another behavioral health case manager and increasing crisis staff members to answer the crisis line and be available for mobile and phone assessments, especially for second and third shift.
The Fond du Lac County Board July 21 voted 15-9 on closing the unit. The resolution includes a directive for a transition plan to ensure continuity of patient care.
Several board supervisors wanted to hold off on the decision to close the unit until a comprehensive crisis management plan was in place with input from stakeholders like local law enforcement agencies, National Alliance on Mental Illness Fond du Lac, ADVOCAP and the Solutions Center. County Executive Sam Kaufman said at the meeting the plan to increase crisis presence by the time the unit closes will engage local entities such as NAMI.
Mental health care used to occupy the full building
Inpatient services started in the First Street building in 1972 with a 25-bed acute unit and another 100 beds for those with chronic mental illnesses, all part of the Community Mental Health Center, according to a 2015 The Reporter column from Dr. Darold Treffert.
It closed in 1978 after the clinical director at the time left the facility and it no longer met operational requirements, though it reopened in 1980 with Treffert at the helm, according to The Reporter archives.
The acute unit downsized to 16 beds in 2023 as part of organization changes pursued since 2019, according to Vanevenhooven. She added July 21 that the challenges the unit faces now are not new.
Fond du Lac’s first dedicated space for mental health care was known as the “poor farm and insane asylum” on Military Road starting in 1856 before the Fond du Lac County Asylum was built in 1886, according to archives.
Moving from simply custodial care to treatment took almost 80 years, when a part-time psychiatrist joined the staff in 1963.
Outside of that facility, a “guidance clinic” for outpatient services opened part-time in 1943 next to the Fond du Lac County Jail, moving to full-time services in 1960.
Daphne Lemke is the Streetwise reporter for the Fond du Lac Reporter. Contact her at dlemke@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Fond du Lac Reporter: Fond du Lac County plans mental health services ahead of unit’s closure
Reporting by Daphne Lemke, Fond du Lac Reporter / Fond du Lac Reporter
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By Daphne Lemke, Fond du Lac Reporter | USA TODAY Network
