Kirkland’s new walk-in crisis care center for people experiencing mental health emergencies will begin accepting patients in early August.
The center is the first of its kind in the county and will fill a gap in the mental health care system: a place for people in crisis to go other than the emergency room or jail.
“If you’re a man at home who has an alcohol problem, who is suicidal, who is potentially a danger to others, who is aggressive, violent or having emotions that he can’t control, they can all come here and get help,” said Morgan Matthews of Connections Health Solutions, the company contracted to build and operate the center.
Related: Fifty years ago, many psychiatric hospitals were closed. Is that the cause of today’s mental health crisis?
The center’s first floor houses a psychiatric emergency room and a wing with 32 “observation chairs” for patients who need less than 23 hours to stabilize. The second floor has two 16-bed inpatient units, one for voluntary patients and the other for voluntary or involuntary patients, who can stay for up to two weeks. Treatment for the uninsured is covered by government funding.
People in crisis can come alone or with their family. Police or firefighters can bring them here instead of to the emergency room or the jail. Someone can call 988 and a mobile crisis response team can pick them up and bring them here. Emergency rooms can also refer them.
The goal is to stabilize people before connecting them to local services that better fit their needs, such as long-term inpatient services, outpatient psychiatric services, drug treatment programs or housing.
Everything in the center has been set up with the patient in mind, from chairs that can’t be lifted off the floor to showerheads that are flush with the wall to tactile walls that patients can use to self-soothe.
Related: The suicide and crisis hotline 988 marks its second anniversary tomorrow.
“Many aspects of the crisis can be very anxiety-provoking, so having something like a tactile wall can really help calm you down and help you return to the real world and regain your focus,” Matthews said.
Matthews said that’s also why there are no abstract paintings on the walls, only photographs of the Pacific Northwest.
“We wanted something real and relatable and to give people a sense of, ‘OK, I’m in Washington. I’m safe,'” she said.
The center’s operators plan to apply to be the first of King County’s five behavioral health crisis centers to be funded by the new levy. The levy funds could be used to partially fund the center’s operations, particularly for the uninsured, and provide training opportunities for the next generation of mental health providers. They could also purchase the building the center is in, “which would allow us to serve people in perpetuity,” King County Executive Kelly Ryder said.
