For many years staff and community stakeholders have identified the need for a crisis stabilization unit to serve children and youth in an emotional crisis. Currently young people are brought to the County’s Psychiatric Emergency Service (PES) unit when they are experiencing an emotional crisis. PES accepts every individual in need of care however it does not currently have the capacity to separate children and youth from adult patients at its entrance, waiting room, triage, or treatment area. The result is that young patients are often in the presence of adults experiencing acute psychiatric symptoms. This exposure would be difficult for any young person but is particularly traumatic for emotionally vulnerable children and youth experiencing a mental health crisis. Furthermore, children and adolescents have developmentally distinct needs that require tailored approaches to stabilization, discharge planning, and transition to appropriate longer-term services.   
  
On March 2, 2021, the Board of Supervisors approved and authorized the Health Services Department to submit Grant Application #28-950 to the CHFFA's Investment in Mental Health Wellness Grant Program for Children and Youth to support renovations, furniture and equipment for a children's crisis stabilization unit to be located at a to be determined County owned property.  
  
By accepting funding from CHFFA, the Behavioral Health Division hopes to create a free-standing crisis stabilization unit to better support the needs of the community and the long-term therapeutic outcomes of the children and youth in need of therapeutic crisis support services.  
  
The Behavioral Health Division anticipates that the CSU will provide services to approximately 2,190 clients annually. Grant funds will be used to finance construction and renovation costs, furnishings and equipment, information technology costs, as well as three months of program startup or expansion costs. Services provided to young people experiencing an emotional crisis will include: psychiatric assessments, crisis intervention/crisis stabilization services, brief therapeutic interventions and referrals to appropriate community-based services. Program costs will be offset by mental health realignment, federal financial participation and private insurance billing.

If this action is not approved, the County would not have funds to renovate a facility to provide crisis stabilization services to youth and children experiencing an emotional crisis.

This recommendation supports the children’s outcome: (2) Children and Youth Healthy and Preparing for Productive Adulthood.