Today, Connections Health Solutions and the City of Kirkland opened the region’s first walk-in 24/7 behavioral health crisis center along with partner cities of Bothell, Kenmore, Lake Forest Park, and Shoreline.
The new crisis center will provide walk-in urgent care and continued stabilization for people experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis. Its opening completes the first fully connected local crisis care system for behavioral health in King County: connecting and providing our North King County community members with someone to call (988 or the Regional Crisis Connections Line), someone to respond (mobile crisis teams) and now somewhere to go plus someone to follow up (crisis care centers). This is the system we are working to create countywide through the Crisis Care Centers Initiative.
Before the CCC Initiative, King County invested $11.5M to make this center happen.
“Kirkland’s Crisis Response Center is a significant milestone for our region’s behavioral health response and a glimpse of what’s to come as we work to open a network of five new crisis care centers throughout King County. The opening of this new space highlights the strength of collaboration among cities, providers, workers, and community members. We celebrate this progress and the immediate support it will bring to communities as we work to expand crisis services through our countywide initiative.” –King County Executive Dow Constantine
Executive Constantine joined local officials and the team from Connections Health Solutions to celebrate the center’s ribbon cutting and tour the new facility on July 29. Check out The Seattle Times and KUOW’s coverage of the event:
Kirkland is opening the county’s first walk-in crisis care center | The Seattle Times
King County is getting its first walk-in mental health crisis center I KUOW
Last month, King County Council unanimously approved the implementation plan for the CCC Initiative to create and operate five new regional crisis care centers—similar to the one in Kirkland—to provide everyone a nearby place to go in a crisis to get immediate access to the behavioral health care they need.
The center in Kirkland offers the same welcoming environment and services people can expect at King County’s future crisis care centers that will be geographically dispersed throughout the county. Highlights include:
- A walk-in urgent care facility available 24/7 to serve anyone with a mental health and/or substance use related need. Most folks will be good after being seen in the urgent care clinic and not have additional care needs.
- For people who come to a crisis care center and need a higher level of behavioral health care, there is a 23-hour observation unit. This full spectrum psychiatric setting includes comfortable recliners, nature photography that brings the outdoors in, and natural light.
- For those who need more than 23 hours, the center has a 14-day crisis stabilization unit with 16 beds in rooms with windows letting in natural light. This is a setting able to meet high needs and includes calming rooms and a common space.
- The center also has a meeting space to follow-up with people after they visit a crisis care center and connect them to helpful wellness or social services.
The new center received high praise from mental health advocate and former U.S. Congressman Patrick Kennedy (RI) when he toured the space with Executive Constantine, Representative Tina Orwall (D-Des Moines), and DCHS Director Kelly Rider on August 8. They joined Kennedy in a conversation about the CCC Initiative and how King County is making access to treatment a priority.
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