Southwest Virginia is addressing mental health emergencies with two new facilities

ROANOKE, VA – Two crisis centers will open in Southwest Virginia in 2025, designed to help anyone experiencing a mental health emergency or crisis.

Blue Ridge Behavioral Health is opening one in Hollins. It will be open 24 hours a day for anyone who voluntarily seeks support, and someone can stay at the center until 11 p.m.

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

The director of Blue Ridge Behavioral Health, Marcus Alert, Mandy Lee, said the center is opening because the number of mental illnesses has increased over the past few decades.

“People need support. People need places to go with trained professionals who can help them in times of need. Often we see people on their worst day, and we want to be able to give them that support and meet their needs,” Lee said.

Lee also said it helps free up hospital beds and provides an alternative place to live.

At the new facility, officers can drop off someone who, according to a court order, needs to be hospitalized because they pose a threat to themselves or others, known as an emergency custody order. Usually, officers must stay with the person until a hospital bed becomes available. However, at the new facility, the on-duty officer may transfer custody of the individual to an off-duty officer who is trained to work with people in behavioral crisis.

The Marcus Alert the division will also be present at the opening of the new center in 2025. Lee said it was the state’s response to an officer-involved shooting in the Richmond area. She said the purpose of Marcus Alert is to provide a behavioral health response to a behavioral health crisis. Lee said there are different components.

“One of them is to forward calls from 911 to 988, so if a caller calls 911 today, those dispatchers can determine their need based on a four-tiered system. This is a sorting of urgency of four levels. They can offer certain callers a 988 transfer where they can speak to a clinician who can meet their needs and it doesn’t send out a police officer, so the response is really tailored to the person’s needs,” Lee said.

She said if the person needs a personal response, they can send a police officer and a joint response therapist so they can provide the best response to that person.

In 2025, Horizon Behavioral is also opening a crisis drop-in center in the Lynchburg area.

Horizon Behavioral Health currently serves approximately 12,000 people this year, and some of its services include case management and outpatient therapy.

At the new centre, due to open next year, anyone experiencing a psychiatric emergency or crisis can come in and be monitored for 23 hours.

Some services include drug and alcohol detoxification and mental health evaluations.

Horizon said the new intensive care center will have 16 beds and is expected to help thousands of people.

“We want to make sure we’re giving our community the tools and the help they need, and I think we’re doing that. I think we’re doing the best we can and we want to make sure our community gets the services they need,” said Horizon Behavioral Health CEO Melissa Lucey.

In this new crisis reception center, an on-duty officer can also transfer custody of a person with an emergency custody order to an off-duty officer who is trained to work with individuals in behavioral crisis.

Virginia Senator Mark Peake was at Horizon last week to see how they are in the process of building the new center.

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

“If one or two of them are sitting with mental illness patients in the hospital, there’s no one patrolling the streets, and when an emergency call comes in, fewer people have to respond, and that can lead to delayed response times,” Peek said.

Horizon said the new crisis reception center will also help address a shortage of hospital beds in Virginia and allow people to stay at home so families can visit them.