Daily Herald opinion: The right move: Early numbers show DuPage’s Crisis Recovery Center making a positive impact

Acknowledging the need for a specialized facility where people suffering a mental health or substance use crisis can get immediate help, DuPage County officials several years ago unveiled a proposal for a behavioral health crisis hub.

Today, the new DuPage County Crisis Recovery Center is open, and early numbers indicate that it’s making a positive impact.

Adam Forker, the DuPage County Health Department’s executive director, told county board members last week that the $25.8 million facility is off to a “very strong start.”

“How is it going? It’s going incredibly well,” Forker said.

The center, located at the county complex in Wheaton and accessible around the clock, serves as an alternative to hospital emergency rooms or law enforcement intervention.

Family members, individuals, and first responders can bring those experiencing a crisis to the center, where they are screened and cared for by trained mental health and substance use professionals. They are then connected to community resources for continued support.

The center officially opened in September. Within its first seven weeks of operation, 332 assessments were completed, and 65 youth were served.

“So we have significantly expanded our reach of crisis care services in just a matter of weeks, both for youth and adults,” Forker said.

The facility’s adult and youth mental health pods and sobering services have been available since Sept. 2.

It also recently started providing a form of withdrawal management, and there’s already been “some steady admissions” for that service, Forker said.

He said referrals to the center have been coming from first responders, families, hospitals and the county jail.

Someone facing a crisis can also call the health department’s hotline at (630) 627-1700 or the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. In addition, the department can deploy a mobile crisis response team.

The fact that DuPage offers a crisis line and has a mobile crisis response team underscores its longtime commitment to providing behavioral health services to the public.

Still, county officials took an ambitious step when they proposed the Crisis Recovery Center, in part, because the idea was not cheap. But before DuPage County Board Chair Deborah Conroy was elected to her seat in 2022, she served as an Illinois lawmaker and helped secure $5.5 million in state funding for the project.

County board members then agreed to allocate $15.3 million in federal American Rescue Plan money to help pay for the construction. The health department provided another $5 million, including a $1 million grant secured by U.S. Rep. Sean Casten.

We applaud DuPage leaders for coming together to make the project possible. Now that the facility is open, it’s clear that they made the right move.

The Crisis Recovery Center was needed in DuPage. Going forward, it will serve as a model for how other counties across the nation can provide accessible behavioral health care.