November 2 – Across New Mexico, crisis triage centers are having a moment.
Santa Fe has one, located at the La Sala Center in Santa Fe County.
Lining up for Gallup is a new center operated by the Santa Fe Recovery Center that is expected to open its doors in less than a week.
Bernalillo and Sandoval counties will soon have one as well, a facility that state leaders say will be operated by the University of New Mexico.
Clovis, which works hand-in-hand with about half a dozen other communities, also wants a crisis triage center. City leaders put out a call for proposals from potential operators earlier this week.
The appeal is obvious. Crisis triage centers provide a walk-in resource where community members can come without an appointment to find out how to get help. They give police and first responders a place to care for people in crisis, not in jail or in the emergency room. They often embrace a ‘living room’ model, where the center feels homely and is designed so that clients feel comfortable and can relax.
But it’s not necessarily easy or cheap to get started. Just ask Jess Spohn, who has been preparing for months to launch the Gallup Crisis Center.
“There are government regulations, right? And think about staffing levels,” said Spohn, the center’s director of crisis services, who has seen demand for centers grow in recent years. “It’s a lot of work.”
Hiring a crisis triage center means hiring the right people with the right qualifications, said Spohn, who uses they/their pronouns.
“So, for example, according to state regulations, you must have a certified peer support worker and a licensed physician every shift,” they said.
Those employees must also have at least one year of behavioral health experience, and they must be physically present during their shifts – it is not a job that allows for remote work.
When the Gallup center opens Thursday, it will begin with limited hours, offering services Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. But eventually, Spohn says, the service will expand to 24/7 service.
That means employees must not only be willing to work in person, but also be willing to work nights.
“When we think about different shifts, you need at least four to six or seven of each of these individuals to operate,” Spohn said. ‘Plus, you also need other staff to help support you.’
The Gallup Center plans to later offer mobile crisis services: teams that go directly into the community. That’s all a challenge, especially in rural communities, Spohn said.
Spohn started interviewing candidates in June and has hired seven people so far.
“All of my employees are from Gallup and the surrounding areas, but some of that area is an hour to hour and a half drive each way each day,” they said.
Nick Boukas, director of the New Mexico Behavioral Health Services Division, said operators of crisis triage centers must go through an application process. They must prove that they are following appropriate clinical guidelines, that the facility itself is safe and that the operators have good referral networks and meet staffing requirements based on their size.
Such centers must pass an on-site inspection and become enrolled as Medicaid providers so they can receive reimbursement for services.
“It can be a small process,” Boukas said. “But what we really want to do is have something that is open with quality assurance.”
All that can be expensive.
“I think the biggest challenge in keeping a crisis triage center afloat in general is the financing piece,” said Spohn, who previously worked for a crisis triage center in Las Cruces that closed abruptly early this year due to funding issues.
The Gallup center is being started with the help of about $1.5 million from a state grant, and will start with an operating budget of about $1 million a year, said Kourtney Muñoz, a spokesperson for the Santa Fe Recovery Center.
Spohn, who still lives in Las Cruces, said they will go to Gallup next week for the center’s opening, where they will meet with law enforcement, first responders and leaders from both hospitals to raise awareness about the center and how it will go to work. work.
“That piece of community connection is so important to get,” they said.
Setting up a crisis triage center can be time-consuming.
Clovis assistant city manager Claire Burroughes told The New Mexican on Friday that local leaders expect it will take about 25 months to get the center off the ground.
Clovis, in partnership with Curry, Roosevelt, Quay, DeBaca and Union counties, as well as Portales and Fort Sumner, has purchased land on the city’s northwest side where the $10 million facility will be built.
Burroughes said a feasibility study recently showed demand for the center comes from across the community. That includes the population at Cannon Air Force Base.
‘They’ll be back [after a deployment]and some of them need mental health care,” she said.
Service members are typically far from home and may have to drive as far as El Paso to get help if they can’t find services locally, Burroughes added.
Boukas said state leaders see crisis triage centers as an important resource, especially for communities that may have few other resources. The Santa Fe Recovery Center is one of several providers in the state working to become a “Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic,” a federally designated model that includes offering a comprehensive range of outpatient services.
“I think we recognize that not every community is going to have the ability to take on something like this [certified community behavioral health clinic]’, Boukas said. “…The biggest thing we really want to do as a state is make sure we build this as a system.”
