Syracuse, NY -- A new crisis center for children and adults struggling with mental health, drug addiction or both will open later this month in Syracuse, providing an alternative to emergency rooms for those who need help fast, according to state officials.
The Crisis Stabilization Center, at 329 N. Salina St., is envisioned as an urgent care for people in psychiatric crisis. It will be open 24/7 every day of the year for people of any age. The first day of operation will be Dec. 11.
Inside, there are separate areas for children and adults. Those in crisis can stay for up to 24 hours, giving time to detox, wind down and be assessed for future outpatient treatment, according to state mental health and drug treatment officials.
The facility, run by Helio Health, is expected to see 15 patients a day, or more than 5,000 patients a year. It’s overnight capacity will be seven adults and five children, with increased capacity during the day.
It is one of nine centers outside of New York City authorized under recent state law to provide both mental and substance abuse treatment outside a hospital setting. It will have five psychiatric nurse practitioners and seven registered nurses among its 36 staff.
The Syracuse center is the first in the state to open under a 2022 law that allowed the centers to be jointly licensed and funded by the state’s separate offices of mental health and addiction services, said Christopher Smith, an associate commissioner in the Office of Mental Health.
Helio Health won a state bid to operate the center for the Central New York region, which includes Onondaga, Cayuga, Madison, Oswego and Cortland counties. It will accept anyone from those counties. The center is located in the first floor of the Learbury Building on Syracuse’s North Side.
“It’s a warm, welcoming, friendly setting people can go to when they’re not at their best,” Smith said.
The center also aims to keep people who don’t need a hospital stay out of the area’s overcrowded emergency rooms, especially the Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program (CPEP) at St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center and the Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital.
That’s a big deal for its services director, Tania Lyons, who worked for a couple of years as a part of a Syracuse mobile crisis team. On the streets, Lyons said she saw many people who just needed a little extra help to break out of an episode of mental illness or substance abuse, but didn’t need the emergency room.
“I can’t tell you the number of people who could have benefited from something like this,” Lyons said of her experience. Instead, she had no choice but to send them to hospital ERs.
In addition to opening its doors to walk-in clients, the center also has a separate entrance for first responders to bring patients via ambulance, Lyons said. Police and emergency personnel can call the center from the scene of a person in crisis to determine if the patient needs hospital care or can be brought to the crisis center instead.
The center will also accept voluntary walk-in patients. However, persons in crisis who are being involuntarily confined will not be let go if they refuse treatment; instead, they will be transferred to a hospital. The center also can’t take anyone who is actively violent, Lyons said.
The center has furniture and fixtures safe for those who might seek to harm themselves, Lyons said. There are also laundry, kitchen and shower facilities, as well as multiple lounge rooms, some geared toward kids.
Staff writer Douglass Dowty can be reached at ddowty@syracuse.com or (315) 470-6070.