Mental health services take giant leap forward

May 4—TRAVERSE CITY — A possible site has been identified for a mental health center in Grand Traverse County that would be the first stop for anyone in need of mental health or substance use disorder services.

The building is near Munson Medical Center, although County Administrator Nate Alger declined to give the address as negotiations are still ongoing.

Alger toured the space Friday and told county board members at their regular meeting Wednesday that it was "sufficient."

Alger said the leadership team working on procuring the site would likely have a proposal by the end of May or early June to apply for $5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding that was set aside by the GTC board in December for this purpose. The money will be used to renovate the building, he said.

The access center would get people the help they need and act as a diversion center to keep people out of emergency rooms and jail, which is often the first stop for those in crisis.

"Anybody who is in crisis, whether it's a parent bringing a child or it's somebody who has engaged in substance use and has overdone it and is in a crisis, or it's law enforcement, they're going to receive immediate assessment and they're going to direct that person where to go," Alger said.

"We're hoping that's anyplace but jail and, minimally, the emergency department."

The county board also unanimously approved an enabling agreement that has been several months in the works. It is the seventh draft and all six of the member counties must approve it. GTC became the fifth on Wednesday.

It was exactly one year ago that county board members agreed to part ways with Northern Lakes Community Mental Health Authority after what they said was decades of poor service.

Shortly afterward, administrators and board chairs from the six counties that also include Crawford, Leelanau, Missaukee, Roscommon and Wexford began the process of rewriting the agreement.

What started as a strained relationship has improved over the course of the last months, Alger said.

The next step is to rewrite the board bylaws, which are a companion to the agreement, he said.

The new access center will expand and improve upon services that are already in place — a mobile crisis unit, a crisis line, a Welcoming Center and a contract for residential beds with Hope Network — but are insufficient, Alger said.

The Welcoming Center located in the Northern Lakes Community Mental Health building in downtown Traverse City has been open for about a year and serves people 24/7.

It is small, but has always been seen as a steppingstone for a larger, full-service center.

The access center will have space for Addiction Treatment Services, National Alliance on Mental Illness, Before During and After Incarceration, Child and Family Services and all the partnering organizations.

People will be assessed when they come in and then sent for follow-up outpatient care, to a short-term residential unit, or to a long-term inpatient psychiatric hospital.

Some may still be sent to an emergency room, but those numbers are expected to decrease over time.

The center will be established in three phases, the first of which will bring all existing services to the access point. The second will add nursing and psychiatric assessments, with the final phase adding a crisis stabilization unit (CSU) for stays of up to 72 hours, and a crisis residential unit (CRU) that will provide beds for stays of up to 14 days.

The leadership team consists of representatives from Northern Lakes, Munson, the Northern Michigan Regional Entity, the Northwest Community Health Innovation Region and the county.

"We're putting the plan together so it can be funded, but also so it meets state criteria," said Brian Martinus, interim CEO of Northern Lakes.

Northern Lakes received a $3 million state grant that can be used for staffing. Martinus said a data collector and a project lead for the access point have already been hired.

State and federal opioid settlement funds also may be available for the project, and Medicaid will pay for the lion's share of services, Alger said.

The center would be a regional one. County board Chairman Rob Hentschel said the board was unanimous in its willingness to put its ARPA funds toward mental health, knowing that the surrounding counties that would benefit from it chose their own projects. He acknowledged that GTC will reap the biggest benefit.

"I encourage administration and the whole team to keep reaching out for those state dollars with that in mind," Hentschel said.

Commissioner Daryl V. Nelson said whenever he has talked with anybody over the last few years about mental health services, nobody was happy.

"Everybody I talked to was frustrated," he said.

The step made by the board last year was controversial, but in the end resulted in an improved and updated agreement and better mental health services.

"This is not a victory lap, by any means," Nelson said, noting that those who worked on the issue got a lot done in a year.

"That is lightning speed in government," he said.

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