It was a packed house on Monday as seven state legislators, one governor, several news cameras and dozens of citizens from all over north Alabama gathered at the Wellstone campus on Memorial Parkway. Wellstone CEO Jeremy Blair was joined by Gov. Kay Ivey and the state’s Mental Health Commissioner Kim Boswell as they cut the ribbon on Wellstone’s new crisis center and welcomed a new era of mental health treatment across Huntsville, Madison County and the entire state.

The new $10 million facility is a state-of-the-art crisis center that will offer citizens short term and long term care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Equipped with 16 beds, the crisis center provides new possibilities for mental health accommodations as the options before were limited to jails and emergency rooms. The building itself is “more than just bricks and mortar,” according to Blair. The CEO likened it to a symbol of hope and healing for the people it will serve regardless of zip code, gender or any other demographic.

Blair echoed sentiments made by state representative and House Majority Leader Nathaniel Ledbetter (R-Rainsville) as they both stressed that mental health is just as important as physical health and should be treated as such.

“As Leader Ledbetter discussed, we can no longer separate mental health care and physical health because they are so one and the same,” Blair preached. “When we neglect our mental health, eventually, we’re going to neglect our physical health. We’ve got to do a better job of understanding and realizing that. I think more and more people are realizing that it’s OK to not be OK. And they are seeking that help.”

The center at Wellstone is one of six across the state that is either open or opening in the near future. The crisis centers are a direct result of Ivey’s administration, the Alabama Department of Mental Health and the Alabama Legislature appropriating necessary funds for the first major investment in state mental health services since the Wallace administration. In her remarks at the ceremony, Governor Ivey emphasized that it is well past time for Alabama to prioritize mental health care.

“Often called a mental health pioneer in Alabama, my mentor Lurleen Wallace (Alabama’s first female governor) laid the foundation for mental health care which throughout the past three decades has been placed on the back burner for way too long,” she remarked. “But it’s time. It’s been time for Alabama to prioritize mental health services and I’m proud to say we are continuing just that here today.”

Thanks to funding from the state legislature, crisis centers are opening soon in Birmingham, Montgomery, Dothan, Tuscaloosa and Mobile, in addition to the Huntsville location. For the Huntsville location, $5 million of the funding came from state funds with the remaining $5 million being raised through donations and local government funds.

Wellstone is also opening a separate pediatric wing for the crisis center that will contain 24 additional beds. Blair said the company will break ground on the pediatric wing in spring of 2023.