IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (AP) - No one can say enough about the work Brenda Price did to establish the Behavioral Health Crisis Center of East Idaho.
The center provides 24-hour voluntary admission to those having a mental health crisis or addiction issues. It has been an invaluable tool for law enforcement, Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center and the justice system.
Instead of throwing someone in jail or hospitalizing them if they are experiencing a mental health crisis, family members and law enforcement can see if the individual wants to voluntarily admit themselves to the center.
But that two-year effort left Price wanting a much-needed break, the Post Register (https://bit.ly/2tu442e ) reported. Constantly dealing with people in crisis, though fulfilling when clients are helped, was exhausting. So Price resigned from the center in March for personal reasons and because she was feeling the strain of running the nonprofit.
Price was picked as the center’s director and guided it through its first two years in town. The state-funded pilot project, by nearly all measures, has been a success.
“It was a great experience. I saw so many people make amazing changes in their lives,” Price said. “All they needed was a little bit of help and things can really fall in place.”
In its first year the center saved the state an estimated $764,000 by taking patients that otherwise would have been hospitalized or jailed.
The Idaho Legislature ponied up $1.5 million to establish the center in 2014 and placed it under a two-year state-funded contract. That time frame is coming to a close. But officials on the center’s advisory board say the state has agreed to further fund the center for up to five years. But by that five-year mark, state funds will be reduced by 50 percent and the community that hosts the crisis center will have to make up the remaining funding.
Following the success of the eastern Idaho regional pilot program, Coeur d’Alene opened a crisis center for northern Idaho in 2015. A third state-funded crisis center opened in late 2016 in Twin Falls and a fourth crisis center is slated to open in the Boise area.
The Crisis Center’s interim director Hailey Tyler said the center is in the bidding process to secure a subcontractor to provide staff and services. Rehabilitative Health Services subcontracts for the center now. The plan is to find a subcontractor willing to lead the effort to find that additional funding to keep the center running after the five-year mark.
Tyler said Rehabilitative Health Services has put in a bid to continue subcontracting for the center. If it wins the bid, Tyler said she will stay on as director. She’s spent 12 years with RHS as a licensed counselor working with the chronically mentally ill.
“Brenda did fabulous work,” Tyler said. “Without her we wouldn’t have a crisis center she gave us the momentum to get it up and running.”
After the bidding process, a subcontractor will be picked during the first week of July.
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FINDING FUNDS
On average, about 10 people are admitted to the center daily.
Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Sam Hulse said a couple times in June the center broke its record by admitting 17 people in one day.
The center feeds individuals and provides counseling and activities such as board games for clients. Offering the free service to clients and keeping the lights on in the future may be difficult.
The center receives regular donations of food, clothes, laundry detergent and blankets. But paying for its services once state funding is reduced is on everyone’s mind.
Hulse said the state isn’t going to just abandon its pilot project.
“They’re not just dead dropping us at two years,” Hulse said. “There’s no intention of yanking the rug out from the center.”
There’s the possibility of bringing a little extra cash by billing Medicaid for clients who are eligible. But Price said a similar crises center in Billings, Mont., receives only about $30,000 to $60,000 a year by billing Medicaid.
Hulse said a subcommittee on sustainability of the center has been created and is looking at available grant funding. He said the committee is looking at what it has to do to secure a state grant that targets opioid abuse.
“Getting more sustainable funds is not easy work by any means,” Hulse said. “The biggest thing is to get everyone in the community to support the center. Without that there is the potential for it to go away.”
MarCee Neary, Billings Community Crisis Center program director, said when she took over as director the crisis center was in a shaky economy and the state of Montana was looking at ending its funding. Neary said there was a threat that the crisis center, which also offers counseling to those with mental illness and addiction issues, would have to close its doors in 2010 after only being open since 2006.
“In 2010 we passed a public safety mill levy here locally in our community that contributes up to 50 percent of our funding,” Neary said. “Frankly it was a miracle it passed, because the economy was so bad.”
Neary said she was able to show that the crisis center diverted a large number of people from the jail system and emergency rooms, saving both entities money and time.
Neary said the center is on more stable ground now and pulls together funding from a variety of sources including continuing contributions from the area’s hospitals, private donations, the state of Montana, the mill levy and billing when applicable through Medicaid.
Neary offered advice to Idaho Falls’ crisis center to diversify its funding sources.
“You can’t be dependent on any one funding source,” she said. “The collaboration of our funding sources has really made believers out of the taxpayers who contributed additionally to us. You have to help them understand it’s a big commitment to keep the doors open . but it’s important to the community and they really benefit from it.”
Hulse echoed that sentiment, saying shuttering the local crisis center’s doors would shift issues to other entities.
“There’s a huge unmet need in our community for mental health and substance use issues,” Hulse said. “Everything we’ve done has helped to relieve stress on our jails and on the justice system. Everyone recognizes that this work is the right thing to do.”
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