Project Background
The 23 Hour Crisis Relief Center will provide trauma-informed healthcare services, greatly benefiting the health of the patients it serves, as well as the broader community. Under the current continue of care, residents experiencing a behavioral health crisis have limited resources for stabilization: 1) While the Whatcom County Anne Deacon Center for Hope provides some stabilization support it is not designed to meet the immediate needs of individuals experiencing a crisis - currently wait lists are 14 or more hours and there is a capacity of 16 people at a time. 2) The local emergency department, while often able to take individuals immediately do not have the staff necessary to support individuals experiencing a behavioral health crisis. 3) Law enforcement sometimes uses the jail, which is less trauma informed than the 23 hour facility will be, when the individual experiencing crisis is a danger to self or others and no other options are available. The 23 hour facility will provide crisis services and medication, but will also facilitate access to other levels of inpatient and outpatient healthcare, becoming a critical linkage in the continuum of care for behavioral health. Further, other overburdened systems (hospital, jail) will be relieved by the provision of more appropriate care at the 23 hour facility, creating cost savings and everyday operational improvements.
