Since opening in November, the new Hope Pointe Behavioral Health crisis center in Tuscaloosa reports it has seen about 115 people with plans to grow and serve even more patients starting in 2025.

The current facility is temporary, and a larger building with more beds is under construction, said Alabama Department of Mental Health Commissioner Kimberly Boswell,

The center is part of the Crisis System of Care, a network of crisis centers that launched in 2022. Hope Pointe is the fifth to open in Alabama. The other facilities are in Birmingham, Mobile, Montgomery, and Huntsville. They are open every day, 24 hours a day, to help people experiencing severe mental health episodes such as psychosis or suicidal thoughts and behavior. The purpose is to lessen the load at hospital emergency rooms and prevent people with substance abuse or mental health issues from ending up in jail.

What makes Hope Pointe unique is the “peer services” aspect of care, Boswell said. Services are “provided by people who have lived experience” with mental health or substance abuse issues.

“These are people who have been in the shoes of these clients,” said director Dr. Jaime Garza. “So they give them that empathy and compassion from the moment they walk in the door.”

Hope Pointe’s certified peer specialists are one element that emphasizes how the entire community is involved in someone’s treatment.

“This is a community problem, which requires a community solution,” Garza said. The community involvement began long before the doors opened. In May 2022, a “stepping up committee” was formed, bringing together everyone involved in the community’s mental health, including law enforcement.

“There’s really a tremendous amount of community engagement and community planning that went on,” Boswell said.

The building is located at 1401 Greensboro Avenue and is purposely visible on the street. The high visibility is part of an overall goal to show that getting help with mental health issues should not be seen as something deviant or abnormal.

“We just want to normalize getting help as much as we can, because it is normal,” said Karen Jones. Jones is the CEO of Indian Rivers Behavioral Health, which operates Hope Pointe. “There isn’t a human being that doesn’t experience a mental health issue.”

Another unique part of Hope Pointe’s treatment is that the building itself is part of patients’ care. The building does not look or feel like a hospital.

“You’re going to see, aesthetically, a beautiful facility, very inviting to walk in,” Garza said. “It’s all with the intent of allowing the building to participate in the treatment process. When someone walks in and they start seeing the nice, beautiful paint and the artwork and the flowers, it automatically starts to de-escalate them,” Garza said.

An administrative assistant and a peer specialist greet and assess the patient. Then, the patient is assessed in triage for any health issues that may warrant a visit to the emergency room. Once they finish this process, a psychiatric clinician determines if the person needs overnight observation.

The facility has 16 recliners for temporary observation for less than 24 hours. There are four additional beds if someone needs an extended observation for a week or less. Staff determine a discharge plan with additional services for each patient.

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If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts or experiencing a crisis, please dial 988 or text HOME to 741741 to speak or text with someone at the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. For more information, visit 988lifeline.org and CrisisTextLine.org.