Behavior health center takes a 'lot of work'

Across New Mexico, crisis triage centers are having a moment.

Santa Fe has one, based at Santa Fe County’s La Sala Center.

Gallup is line for one, a new center operated by the Santa Fe Recovery Center that’s scheduled to open its doors in less than a week.

Bernalillo and Sandoval counties are soon to have one, too, a facility state leaders say will be run by the University of New Mexico.

Clovis, working hand in hand with about a half-dozen other communities, wants a crisis triage center as well. City leaders put out a call last week for proposals from would-be operators.

The appeal is obvious. Crisis triage centers offer a walk-in resource where community members can come without an appointment to figure out how to get help. They offer police and first responders a place to take people in crisis that isn’t the jail or an emergency room. They often embrace a “living room” model, where the center feels homey and is designed for clients to be comfortable and relax.

But they’re not necessarily easy or cheap to get started — just ask Jess Spohn, who has been preparing for months to launch the Gallup Crisis Center.

“There’s the state regulations, right? And think about the staffing,” said Spohn, the center’s crisis services director, who has seen the demand for centers grow for the last several years. “It’s a lot of work.”

Hiring for a crisis triage center means hiring the right people with the right qualifications, said Spohn, who uses they/them pronouns.

“So, for example, according to state regulations, you have to have a certified peer support worker and a licensed clinician on shift, every shift,” they said.

Those workers also have to have at least a year of behavioral health experience, and they have to be physically present for their shifts — it’s not a job that allows remote work.

When the Gallup center opens Thursday, it will start with limited hours, offering services from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday to Friday. But eventually, Spohn said, it will ramp up to 24/7 service.

That means not only do workers have to be willing to work in person, they have to be willing to work nights.

“If we’re thinking about different shifts, you’re going to need at least four to six or seven of each of these individuals to be able to operate,” Spohn said. “Plus you’re going to need other staff as well to help support.”

The Gallup center plans to later offer mobile crisis services — teams that go out into the community directly. That’s all a challenge, particularly in rural communities, Spohn said.

Spohn started interviewing candidates in June, and so far has hired seven people.

“All of my staff come from Gallup and the surrounding areas, but some of that surrounding area is an hour to an hour-and-a-half drive for them each way, every day,” they said.

Nick Boukas, director of the New Mexico Behavioral Health Services Division, said crisis triage center operators have to go through an application process. They must prove they’re following proper clinical guidelines, the facility itself is safe, and operators have proper referral networks and are meeting staffing requirements based on their size.

Such centers have to pass a site inspection and get enrolled as Medicaid providers so they can get reimbursed for services.

“It can be a little bit of a process,” Boukas said. “But what we really want to do is have something that’s open with quality care.”

All that can be costly.

“I think the biggest challenge just in general of upstanding a crisis triage center is that funding piece,” said Spohn, who previously worked for a crisis triage center in Las Cruces that shut down abruptly early this year because of funding issues.

The Gallup center is getting up and running using about $1.5 million from a state grant, and will start with an operating budget of about $1 million per year, said Kourtney Muñoz, a spokesperson for the Santa Fe Recovery Center.

Spohn, who still lives in Las Cruces, said they will be heading to Gallup next week for the center’s opening, where they’ll meet with law enforcement officers, first responders and leaders from both hospitals to spread awareness of the center and how it will work.

“That community relationship piece is so important to get,” they said.

Setting up a crisis triage center can be time-consuming.

Claire Burroughes, Clovis’ assistant city manager, told The New Mexican on Friday local leaders expect it to take about 25 months to get the center off the ground.

Clovis, partnering with Curry, Roosevelt, Quay, DeBaca and Union counties, as well as with Portales and Fort Sumner, has purchased land on the northwest side of the city, where the $10 million facility will be built.

Burroughes said a feasibility study recently showed demand for the center has come from all over the community. That includes the population at Cannon Air Force Base.

“They come back [after a deployment], and some of them need some mental health support,” she said.

Service members are typically far from home and might have to drive as far as El Paso to get help if they’re unable to find services locally, Burroughes added.

Boukas said state leaders view crisis triage centers as an important resource, especially for communities that might be light on other resources. The Santa Fe Recovery Center is one of several providers in the state working to become a “certified community behavioral health clinic,” a federally designated model that involves offering a comprehensive range of outpatient services.

“I think we recognize that not every community is going to have capacity to stand up something like a [certified community behavioral health clinic],” Boukas said. “... The important thing we really want to do as a state is to make sure that we’re building this as a system.”