Southwest Virginia addressing mental health emergencies with two new facilities

ROANOKE, Va. – Two crisis centers, designed to help anyone in a mental health emergency or crisis, are coming to Southwest Virginia in 2025.

Blue Ridge Behavioral Health is opening one in Hollins. It will be open 24 hours for anyone voluntarily seeking support and someone can stay at the center for up to 23 hours.

People can come in as walk-ins and there will be about 12 beds available.

Blue Ridge Behavioral Health’s Marcus Alert Director Mandy Lee said the center is being opened because behavioral health numbers have increased over the last several decades.

“It becomes people need support. People need places to go with trained professionals that can help them in their time of need. Oftentimes, we’re seeing people on their worst day and we want to be able to provide that support for them and meet those needs,” said Lee.

Lee also said that it helps to keep beds available at hospitals and provides an alternative place for someone to stay.

At the new facility, on-duty officers can drop off someone the courts determine has to go to an in-patient hospital stay because they’re a threat to themselves or others, which is known as an emergency custody order. Usually, officers must stay with that person until a hospital bed is available. However, at the new facility, an on-duty officer can transfer custody of that person to an off-duty officer trained to work with people in a behavioral health crisis.

The Marcus Alert unit will also be at the new center opening in 2025. Lee said this is the state’s response to an officer-involved shooting in the Richmond area. She said the goal of Marcus Alert is to have a behavioral health response to a behavioral health crisis. Lee said there are different components.

“One is 911 to 988 call diversion, and so if the caller calls into 911 today, those dispatchers would be able to identify their need based on a four-level system. It’s a four-level urgency triage. They can offer certain callers a transfer to 988 where they can speak with a clinician that will be able to address their needs and it will not dispatch out a police officer so it’s really matching the response with the need of the person,” said Lee.

She said if that person does need an in-person response, they can send a police officer and a co-response therapist together so they can provide the best response to that person.

Horizon Behavioral is also opening a crisis receiving center for the Lynchburg area in 2025.

Horizon Behavioral Health currently helps about 12,000 people this year and some of its services are case management and outpatient therapy.

At the new center opening next year, anyone undergoing a mental health emergency or crisis can come and be monitored for up to 23 hours.

Some of the services include drug and alcohol detox and mental health evaluations.

Horizon said the new crisis receiving center will be a 16-bed facility and it’s expecting it to help thousands of people.

“We want to make sure that we’re providing our community with the tools and the help that they need, and I think we are doing that. I think we are doing that to the best of our ability and we want to make sure that our community gets the services that they need,” said Horizon Behavioral Health CEO Melissa Lucy.

At this new crisis receiving center, an on-duty officer can also transfer custody of someone with an emergency custody order to an off-duty officer trained to work with those in a behavioral health crisis.

Virginia Senator Mark Peake was at Horizon last week seeing where they were in the process with the new center.

Peake said this will help put officers back on the streets.

“If one or two of them are sitting with mental health patients in the hospital, there’s nobody out patrolling the streets and when an emergency call comes in, there are fewer people to respond and that can lead to delayed response times,” said Peake.

Horizon said the new crisis receiving center will also help with the hospital bed shortage in Virginia and allow people to stay in their home areas so families can visit them.