Fulton County, Atlanta and state officials celebrated the start of construction on the county's first new publicly funded Behavioral Health Crisis Center. (Jess Mador/WABE)
Construction is beginning on Fulton County’s first publicly funded Behavioral Health Crisis Center. The Southwest Atlanta facility is expected to be open 24 hours a day, offering a variety of services and a special drop-in area for adults in crisis who may not need inpatient care.
“It’s more of a living room setting with no stigma, just a very calming environment,” said Kevin Tanner, Commissioner of the state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. “So when someone comes in, if they just need a place to sit, they need a place to be observed by a professional for a short period of time, up to 23 hours, that’s what that will be.”
The project is a partnership between the state of Georgia and Fulton County.
Its funding includes more than $6 million from Georgia’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget, and $15 million from Fulton County for construction costs.
The new center will be built on land already owned by the county, adjacent to the Oak Hill Child, Family and Adolescent Center building. Health officials said Oak Hill would continue to operate during construction of the Behavioral Health Crisis Center.
At a groundbreaking ceremony Monday, Tanner said he hopes the center will help alleviate chronic overcrowding in the state’s emergency rooms and the county jail — both have seen an uptick in Georgians struggling with mental health or substance-use issues.
“A lot of people that come to a crisis center don’t necessarily need an inpatient bed. Oftentimes we can move them into a community-based setting,” he said. “The facility will be able to move that person into an outpatient appointment to be able to provide them some medications and services that they need but they’re not in full-blown crisis where they need to come in to an inpatient bed.”
The additional space for outpatient services, he said, would help preserve the region’s existing inpatient beds for people experiencing a more acute mental health crisis.
Results are expected soon from a state survey of its inpatient beds. The state is also working on analyzing its behavioral health-system wages, care cost reimbursements and behavioral health workforce gaps.
The studies are a key part of the continuing rollout of the Mental Health Parity Act, HB 1013, enacted last year.
The Fulton Behavioral Health Crisis Center is the first of three across the state to break ground. Two similar facilities are also planned for Dublin and Augusta.
When they’re completed, the centers will also be able to accept patients through the state’s 988 suicide prevention and crisis hotline network.
When Fulton County’s Behavioral Health Crisis Center opens, it will also be able to accept people through the state’s 988 Lifeline. (https://988lifeline.org/)
Fulton County’s new Behavioral Health Crisis Center will be located on the campus of Oak Hill Child, Family and Adolescent Center, located at 2805 Metropolitan Pkwy SW, Atlanta, GA 30315.
