Fulton County’s first publicly funded behavioral health crisis center is set to open in mid-August, and top county officials toured the nearly finished building Friday.
The center will offer three levels of care: walk-in outpatient, observation for 24 hours, or three to five days in a 24-bed crisis stabilization unit.
The main lobby will be open to the public round the clock, every day of the year, said LaTrina Foster, director of the county Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities. She and Project Manager Sam Bakare led the tour.
“If at any point you feel like you need some sort of mental health intervention, you can walk through this door,” Foster said. Those who do will be greeted by peers — people who have themselves deal with mental and behavioral health issues or substance abuse problems, she said.
Clients who just need to talk or help with a basic problem can go to one of several “living rooms” to meet with staff and be connected to services, Foster said.
Commission Chair Robb Pitts asked if the peer counselors will be center employees. They will be hired by Grady Health Services, which will operate the center under a county contract, Foster replied.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
The walk-in clinic and crisis unit are expected to open first, with the middle level of care — the 18-chair temporary observation unit — opening later, Foster said.
Furniture in the patient areas is designed for safety: rounded edges, too heavy to lift and throw. Pitts and County Manager Dick Anderson tried out the “living room” chairs. The group wound through exam rooms, a laundry, supply rooms and storage areas for clients’ belongings.
The center will have a full pharmacy; it received state certification a few weeks ago, Foster said. Many more state inspections are yet to come, she said.
Officials looked over the 24-bed crisis stabilization unit, with its nurses’ station, dining room and common area. The individual rooms have a window high in the wall, but the few furnishings are again designed for safety.
At full capacity the center could have 104 staff and serve about 2,900 people a year, Foster said.
Once a state group home, for more than 15 years the location has been the site of the Oak Hill Child, Family & Adolescent Center. That center, which houses a community kitchen, childhood hearing test lab and other community services, will remain in operation.
Now the new 23,000-sqare-foot crisis center sits between the previously existing wings.
Work on the crisis center began last year by primary contractor Hogan Construction Group of Norcross and 14 subcontractors.
In addition to providing the Oak Hill site, county commissioners pledged $15 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds to the project, said Pamela Roshell, county chief operating officer.
“We are the only county in Georgia that has committed that type of investment to make sure we have a behavioral health crisis center,” she said.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
County leaders made securing operating funding from the state their top legislative priority in the 2023 General Assembly session.
Initially the county and the state Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities asked legislators for $13.3 million a year in operating funds. Last year the General Assembly approved $5.7 million, enough for the center’s half-year of operations in 2024.
For the first full year of operations the county requested $11.4 million in state funds, but received $9.5 million in the final budget, county spokeswoman Jessica Corbitt said. That’s consistent with Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities’ funding requests for other crisis centers in the state, she said.
There is a great need for such facilities, and the one at Oak Hill should be a model for building more, Pitts said.
A state study found that Fulton County, which has 10% of Georgia’s population, needs at least three such centers, Roshell said.
“The Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities will take the lead on that,” she said. Fulton County will support that agency’s requests for more state funding, Roshell said.
More than 500 Fulton County residents were treated in other publicly funded crisis centers in Georgia during 2022, the most recent year for which data is available, according to the county.
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