By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Helping people in crisis get treatment is a big part of what Horizons Mental Health Center is doing to become a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic.
"Some of the new programs that we've developed are kind of an extension of the co-responder program with the local police department," said Mike Garrett with Horizons. "We have a mobile crisis team that responds to crisis on-site and tries to resolve that and stabilize the situation. We're also developing an adult crisis stabilization center. It will be an eight-bed unit that will allow people to come and be there for about 72 hours, and our efforts will be to stabilize them as quickly as we can."
Garrett clarified that the crisis stabilization unit is there to keep folks from needing to go to the hospital, not to replace that inpatient unit.
"These are individuals that we'll be able to watch and manage," Garrett said. "They may have had suicidal thoughts, but without a plan, without an intent, without access to the method that they were considering. Those individuals would be on 3400, the inpatient unit at the hospital. If they weren't that critical, that severe, our facility would try to stabilize them. If we're unable to, they may end up on a behavioral health unit in an inpatient setting, but our goal is to stabilize them."
Horizons is one of just seven facilities in Kansas seeking CCBHC certification as soon as it becomes available.
"A piece of legislation was passed last year in the Kansas legislature that required KDADS and KDHE to be ready to certify CCBHC's by May 1, 2022," Garrett said. "Our plan is to apply for that certification and become certified by May 2022."
A Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic will have a consistent standard of care with other CCBHC's across the nation.