A Work in Progress: WellStone’s New Crisis Diversion Center

There are two places that a person in the throes of a mental health crisis might find themselves. The local hospital emergency room or jail. Neither one is a truly workable option, both are often overcapacity and understaffed. For someone in crisis, they become drop off destinations of last resort. 

Statistics have shown that one in five Americans suffers from a diagnosable mental illness. This translates into 20 people out of 100, 200 people out of a thousand. Chances are with these kinds of numbers, there’s someone you know that’s desperately struggling with mental health issues.  

It has been speculated that since the pandemic, those figures have only increased. Since March 2020, reports of mental illness, drug overdoses, and suicides have skyrocketed. 

It’s only logical that WellStone, a 501(C)3 nonprofit, one of Madison County’s leaders in mental health care delivery, is building the area’s first crisis diversion center. Construction has been well underway with June 2022 as the targeted completion date. Once completed, the new facility will be home to WellStone Emergency Services (WES). 

WellStone has been running its temporary crisis diversion center in a building on Triana Blvd since May 2021. When the new facility opens, it will be a 25,000 square foot space where people can get the help they need. In fact, the new location will have double the capacity of the temporary center. 

“The temporary building only has ten beds on the inpatient side, ten beds on the temporary observation side, twenty beds total,” said Jeremy Blair, Wellstone’s CEO. “The new building will have up to the capacity of 24 on the inpatient side and 15 on the temporary observation side.”

And, one of the most important aspects about the new building is that it’s being built specifically for this purpose, as opposed to the current retrofitted accommodations.

The development of a crisis diversion center has been in the works for quite some time. After the Alabama Department of Mental Health determined a substantial gap in the state’s crisis care, Governor Ivey dedicated a considerable amount of funding to mental health providers in Huntsville, Montgomery, and Mobile specifically for crisis diversion centers.

The entire project is estimated to cost roughly $10 million, with $1 million of coming from American Rescue Plan dollars provided by Madison County. The state, along with local municipalities, have also committed to $5 million. This leaves a $5 million shortfall. 

To help meet the deficit, WellStone is currently in the process of launching the “Be the Rock” capital campaign.

However, despite the benefits of treatment, the stigma about mental illness and addiction often deters people from seeking help the help they need.

“The pandemic did a lot in making progress in reducing the stigma in that area,” said Blair. “I think we all realized all of us experienced some kind of mental health challenges. I think we all had some feelings of anxiety and maybe even loneliness. As a society, we are used to being in control of things and there was absolutely no control over the pandemic.”

Having access to a new crisis diversion center, along with adequate mental health services is essential to a community’s overall wellbeing. As a society that has been emotionally decimated by the uncertainties of a global pandemic, mental health care is no longer a luxury item or something to be ashamed of. In fact, people baring their souls on social media has also has positively contributed to destigmatizing mental illness. 

“That’s the reality of it, when you get to talking to people and they really open up, you find that more people than not either know somebody or have gone through it personally themselves,” said Blair. “We’re talking about 1 in 5 people have a diagnosable mental health condition sometime in their lifetime. That’s a high percentage of the population. It’s important for us to understand that everybody may have some of this at some point.”

For more information, please visit https://www.wellstone.com/

Cover image courtesy off Chapman Sisson Architects