Mental Health Center to build children's facility in Limestone County
Aug. 4—ATHENS — The Mental Health Center of North Central Alabama plans to construct a new mental health facility for children in Athens, and the Limestone County Commission has allocated $600,000 of COVID relief funds to the project.
Bill Giguere, development officer for the Mental Health Center of North Central Alabama, said Limestone County's population growth has increased demand for his organization's services.
He said the number of people treated at the Mental Health Center's existing Athens clinic has increased by 20% in the last few years. The facility served 1,273 people, of which 426 were children, in fiscal 2021. The clinic has already had 1,203 people use its facility in the first 10 months of this fiscal year, and 511 of those were children.
"We're continuing to see an uptick in the total number served, but we're also seeing a greater percentage that are children," Giguere said.
Giguere said the need for the new clinic is evident.
"The facility we have ... we're busting at the seams," he said. "We're not adding new staff, we're not adding a new service, we're not adding new clients, we're just trying to have a facility where we can serve them adequately without trying to cram too many people in a building that was never designed to serve this many people."
The new facility will be built on 3.8 acres that the center owns adjacent to the current clinic, which is at 1307 E. Elm St. in Athens. The clinic will be about 4,500 square feet and have 12 to 14 staff members. Staff members will include clinicians, front office staff, psychiatrists and nurses.
Giguere said they would like to break ground in the next six months and have it completed a year from now. The approximate cost is between $1 million and $1.2 million.
He said officials are looking at a number of possibilities for funding in addition to the $600,000 the commission allocated from its American Rescue Plan Act funds.
"I believe we're going to have most of the funds available to us when we're ready to begin," he said. "We're looking at our options and we're very optimistic."
Commission Chairman Collin Daly said they talked about a plan for a new facility last year. "Then the ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) money came along, and it would qualify for it, so we decided to use it because it's to help Limestone County move forward."
The new clinic will offer several services for children.
"It will offer outpatient counseling services to children and their family. They will also be able to see the psychiatrist, a medical doctor, and a nurse if there's any medication administration," Giguere said.
The current clinic will be only for adults after the new facility is built.
Giguere said the decision was made to separate the children and adults because "if you go into our adult outpatient clinic, sometimes we have inmates from Limestone County Jail sitting in the lobby shackled with a deputy. We have a number of group home residents and adults sit in the lobby."
"We felt that because it's so crowded it would be more conducive to child therapy to have their own facility," he said.
Daly said mental health issues are growing in the county, which saw its population increase from 2020 to 2021 by an estimated 3.1% to 107,517 people. He said there is no way to separate children from adults in the current facility. "You don't want to devastate somebody who has a mental health issue at a young age."
The Mental Health Center also plans to build a new facility in Decatur at the site of the former Alabama state trooper building on U.S. 31. The Decatur City Council and the Morgan County Commission have each approved $600,000 in ARPA funds to build the 16-bed mental illness crisis residential unit.
—erica.smith@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2460.
