A behavioral health facility that will serve youth and their families is coming to Springfield.
Burrell Behavioral Health broke ground Monday on the Youth Resiliency Campus on N. National just south of I-44.
It will offer a 24/7 youth behavioral crisis center, intensive outpatient programs, partial hospitalization and a long-term youth residential facility.
C.J. Davis, CEO of Brightli, the parent company of Burrell, said options for youth experiencing a mental health crisis are limited. They can go to the emergency room, he said, but ERs are not generally staffed by mental health professionals, “and so, people who have a psychiatric or addictions crisis need a place that they can go, they can be stabilized and then they can be triaged and assessed to determine what level of care they need next.”
The new facility, which Burrell Behavioral Health Board chair Nick Sanders called “a place of hope for youth in southwest Missouri” is expected to take a year and a half to two years to complete. It will serve youth 13 to 17 experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis.
Davis expects people from all over the region to come to the facility for care.
“We have found with our first crisis center for adults that people actually access this level of care from all over a 20 to 30-county region,” he said, “so, to have a place that people can depend on no matter the time, 24/7, 365, will address such a gap in our community.”
The need is great for a facility like this one, according to Davis. Suicide attempts by youth are on the rise, he said.
“What we’re really hoping to do is get out in front of that – to be that place where, before somebody things about taking one’s life, they can actually engage in our level of services and potentially save a life,” Davis said.
The facility will be funded by a $5.3 million American Recovery Plan Act allocation from Greene County and $1 million from the Department of Mental Health. An additional $5 million was allocated for the residential portion in this year’s state budget.
Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams advocated for a behavioral drop-in crisis center for adults in the city “to get people connected to services and get them help and not take them to jail,” and eight years later, he said, it became a reality. The new facility for youth is an outgrowth of that, according to Williams. He said the new campus will have a significant impact on the community -- “Just building that overall sense of self-worth in people, which then results in how they treat others and how they interact with others in a positive environment – I think that’s going to be the end result.”
Davis believes the new Youth Resiliency Campus will be the first of its kind in the state and possibly the nation.
