County moves ahead with planned 16-bed crisis center

The Burke County Opioid Advisory Committee took another step toward developing the county’s planned 16-bed facility-based crisis center at its meeting on Sept. 15.

Dr. Katie Samuels, Burke County’s opioid settlement coordinator, told the committee that Gastonia-based nonprofit Phoenix Counseling Center would be her recommendation at the next Burke County Board of Commissioners meeting to serve as the clinical advisor for the crisis center.

A clinical advisor uses hands-on experience to help guide the design team through planning a facility that optimizes intake, patient flow, safety, and discharge for the future clinicians that will operate the center, according to Samuels’ presentation.

The crisis center, to be located where the old NCWorks building was at 722 E. Union St., Morganton, is meant to mitigate the high volume of behavioral health and substance abuse calls filtering through the local emergency room, providing a space for crisis stabilization where individuals can stay for seven to 14 days on average, Samuels has explained previously.

The $6.5 million secured for this project was acquired through grant funding, according to Samuels, meaning no local dollars will go into it.

“This is the first stop,” Samuels said back in March, just after the county purchased the property and announced its intentions. “Other treatment facilities require medical detox before they’ll accept someone in. This is the medical detox. This is a place where people can go and be stabilized so they can be admitted to other places.”

Two organizations submitted proposals — Phoenix Counseling and Recovery Innovations — and were scored on metrics such as licensure and experience, facility planning design and collaboration, direct facility-based center operational experience, their understanding of the project, and their references.

Phoenix Counseling ranked above Recovery Innovations across the board — earning 93.6% against Recovery Innovations’ 85.8% — with Samuels citing its locality as a strong proponent of its selection, due to nearby facilities in Shelby and Gastonia.

Next year, Samuels explained at Tuesday’s meeting, the county will put out another request for proposals to bring in an organization to operate clinical services at the center.

“One of the things that we really looked at here was (that) Phoenix Counseling indicated that they do want to be considered for providing the services, and Recovery Innovations didn’t,” Samuels said, explaining that Recovery Innovations works on a broader national level, and that contracting for consulting services with someone that’s not local tends to be more expensive.

Phoenix Counseling will have to file another proposal and go through another round of examination before the nonprofit could occupy the space operationally.

On Sept. 21, the recommendation goes before the Board of Commissioners. If the board approves the recommendation and the county enters into a contract with Phoenix Counseling, the nonprofit can move on to the clinical programming and early design phase.

In July, the committee received approval from the commissioners to enter into a contract with Holland & Hamrick Architects, based in Shelby, on the development of the crisis center. According to Samuels’ presentation, the opening is planned for 2028.

OTHER NEWS FROM THE COMMITTEE

The county was awarded nearly $500,000 in grants — $299,000 through the NC ROOTS Mobile Integrated Health initiative and $200,000 through the Governor’s Crime Commission.

The NC ROOTS grant will allow Burke County EMS to work with people whose needs can’t be contained to a single emergency call, allowing for follow-up care, health monitoring, and connections to healthcare providers.

“The Mobile Integrated Health expansion grant is really neat because it allows us to expand what we’re doing with the B.E.A.R. (Burke Emergency Addiction Response) team,” Samuels said. “Where our focus, our priority, is still overdose response, we’re able to have the funding to support whole person care.”

The $200,000 from the Governor’s Crime Commission supports two years of expansion of the Adult Treatment Court services, beginning on Oct. 1.