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Central Minnesota Mental Health Center expands, prepares for further growth

St. Cloud Times - 11/8/2021

Nov. 8—ST. CLOUD — Central Minnesota Mental Health Center is a few months away from completing a new building intended to expand community access to residential crisis care. The new building will also allow the organization to reconsolidate Stearns County outpatient care onto one campus.

Stearns County received about $5 million in mental health crisis grant funds earmarked by the state legislature to support mental health crisis centers.

CMMHC Executive Director Dr. Rick Lee and Stearns County Human Services Administrator Melissa Huberty both said CentraCare was a strong initiator in the collaborative effort that eventually led to the grant, which Stearns County is using to construct the new facility on CMMHC land.

Stearns County owns the building and CMMHC owns the land, and each party has signed an agreement to let the other party use what's theirs. So while it's a Stearns County building, the facility will be run by CMMHC.

CMMHC tore down a different building that was aging poorly to make room for the new, larger building. According to Lee, the new space will be home to CMMHC's mobile crisis response team and its crisis hotline operators. The mobile crisis response team "can travel to homes or community locations within Benton, Sherburne, Stearns, and Wright counties to help individuals in crisis cope with immediate stressors," according to CMMHC.

It will also be the location for 15 residential detox beds and nine residential crisis unit beds. While that's not an increase in the number of people who can be in detox, it will be a roomier, expanded space, Lee said.

It is an expansion of the residential adult crisis stabilization unit, which currently has five beds. He said the setup of the new building will also be a more welcoming environment for people experiencing a mental health crisis. The residential adult crisis stabilization unit is a short-term safe space for people working through a mental health crisis.

Lee said serving people in the midst of a mental health crisis or substance use disorder outside the emergency room not only helps with traffic levels in the ER, but also provides a better level of care.

Lee said that in 2018 and 2019, the center averaged almost 4.5 people in the residential crisis unit every day.

In a place with a capacity of five, that means "you're full all the time," Lee said. "... That place was full every single day for two years."

He said the COVID-19 pandemic meant those numbers dwindled, but he estimated that in September 2021, it returned to capacity-level.

The building that is currently housing residential crisis and detox space will be remodeled for future use for outpatient services. That means all Stearns County outpatient services will be at the 13th Street North location.

He attributed that growth to a new certification model CMMHC achieved in September called Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHC). According to the Minnesota Department of Human Services, "this new service delivery model aims to integrate mental health and substance use disorder service provision, coordinate care across settings and providers to ensure seamless transitions for individuals across the full spectrum of health and social services, increase consistent use of evidence-based practices, and increase access to high-quality care."

That certification comes with a new funding model, which allows CMMHC to provide all its services on a sliding fee scale based on ability to pay. Because this payment option can help people who are underinsured receive care they previously may have had to pay more for, he's expecting even more people to utilize CMMHC services, Lee said.

Minnesota participated in a federal demonstration project from 2017 to 2019 that led to the CCBHC model. According to Lee, the sites that participated experienced significant growth.

"Five years from now, this organization will probably be 30% to 50% larger than it is right now," Lee said.

Pandemic- and supply-chain-related delays means the project is currently expected to be done in mid-February.

The project is being funded largely by the grant, but as construction-related prices went up, additional funding is also coming from CMMHC and American Rescue Plan Act funds, Huberty said. She said no Stearns County taxpayer money is being used for the facility.

It's not new for this kind of teamwork in the area to advance Central Minnesota's mental health care capabilities, Huberty said. Lee and Huberty both said the Central Minnesota area — specifically Benton, Sherburne, Stearns and Wright counties, CMMHC and CentraCare — have a history of collaboration in the name of prevention "and to try to get on top of these crises," Huberty said.

Lee said the new CMMHC building is a prime example of what can be achieved through teamwork like he's seen in the area.

"None of us can achieve what we need to achieve for the citizens of our communities alone," he said.

Sarah Kocher is the business reporter for the St. Cloud Times. Reach her at 320-255-8799 or skocher@stcloudtimes.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahAKocher.

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