A new Crisis Care Center has been set to open to keep mental health patients from inundating local jails and emergency rooms.
According to the American Jail Association, 650,000 people with a mental health issue end up in jail every year in the United States.
Amanda Bacht, the Senior Vice President of Clinical Services at Mental Health Cooperative, said they have been working with local authorities to develop programs to help them.
"There are a lot of communities that are coming together to try and solve the problem of a lot of mentally ill people ending up in local jails and emergency rooms waiting on treatment," Bacht said.
Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall has been launching a new program, so inmates can receive mental health services while behind bars.
But what about the people police encounter who are suffering from a mental health crisis who have not yet committed a crime?
Police need a place to take them.
"It could be that person on a bridge that is threatening to jump off the bridge, and they're like, 'We've got to have a safe place to immediately take that individual,'" Bacht said.
In months, a place like that will be a reality.
Around $3.5 million has been set aside to build a Crisis Care Center in the Metro Center area.
"It's a secure place where there will be enhanced staffing, a variety of treatment professionals, which would include a psychiatric nurse practitioner and a psychiatrist." Bacht said.
Mental Health Cooperative has teamed up with the Nashville Metro Police Department to offer training and support.
"That allows the police to do a drop and roll, meaning they can bring the individual and within ten minutes of bringing them to our center, the officer is back on the street," Bacht said.
This September, Mental Health Cooperative has been in the process of hiring additional doctors, nurses, and health care professionals.
"It's an open concept, so if we fill up the first 16 beds, we can add more bed to add capacity," Bacht said.
The drawings showed a facility where police as well as the public have secure drop off areas.
"If they do end up needing hospitalization, we will be able to facilitate that and provide a safe place for them to wait while we're securing that hospital placement," Bacht said.
The funding comes from taxpayer dollars, Mental Health Cooperative, as well as a state grant worth more than $2.5 million.
Officials hope this new Crisis Care Center will keep people out of jail.
They have planned on opening the facility in June 2018 in the 200 block of Cumberland Bend.
