Hennepin County has fast-tracked the creation of a youth behavioral health crisis stabilization center in Minneapolis as pressure mounts to help kids with complex mental health needs who are stuck in emergency rooms and detention centers.

County commissioners unanimously signed off Tuesday on a $15 million plan to open the center, as well as an up to $7 million annual agreement for provider Nexus Family Healing to operate the 10- to 15-bed crisis residential program for kids.

"This is long overdue," County Administrator David Hough said. While the county wants state lawmakers to address broader youth mental health needs, he added that the county has to act, "because if we don't, it's not going to be done for some time."

He hopes the facility can start operating in three to six months, and he said it will serve Hennepin County children and potentially some kids from other counties.

The new center will focus on a gap in services for kids who need short-term residential treatment to stabilize their behaviors while a support plan is created for them. Some of them stay in juvenile detention centers or emergency rooms, while others remain at home with family members who aren't equipped to meet their intense needs or have to leave the state to get help.

Hennepin County's crisis stabilization center will include three key services:

  • Crisis stabilization, including assessing a child's needs and treatment planning.
  • Family respite, housing a child with behavioral challenges short-term to help a household.
  • Withdrawal management, providing detox and coordination of recovery support for children with substance abuse.

Kids will likely stay at the short-term facility for a maximum of 30 to 45 days, said Leah Kaiser, the county's behavioral health director.

The center will be located on two floors of a building at 1800 Chicago Av. in Minneapolis, where the county currently offers walk-in mental health and substance use disorder support for adults.

County commissioners raised some concerns about that location. Commissioner Angela Conley stressed that the center's design needs to ensure that the kids' entrance and space in the building is separate from the adult areas. She also said some floors of the building look like a jail.

"What I don't want is a copy-paste of what the [Juvenile Detention Center] looks like inside," Conley said.

Young people with complex needs who have been in the corrections system told her they would have benefitted from comfortable, home-like spaces in the community, she said, such as converted six-unit multiplexes.

"I understand the urgency," Conley said. "I don't want it to be too rushed that we miss something."

Nexus' contract starts Nov. 1 and runs through 2027, and Hough said the provider will be able to weigh in on designs of the space. Hennepin County officials said they don't intend for it to be a locked facility, but Nexus will assess whether that's needed.

Nexus Family Services operates various programs in Minnesota and other states. In Minnesota, its services include a range of residential services, home-based therapy and other treatment programs.

Like other mental health providers, they have run into difficulties finding employees. Across the state, many treatment providers are licensed for more beds than they can fill because of staff shortages. Meanwhile, kids languish on waiting lists for care.

The crisis stabilization center was going to be part of the county's project to-do list in upcoming years, but the demand for beds and lack of placement options forced leaders to act faster. Hough said they will be using surplus dollars from six other infrastructure projects that are largely completed and will not be affected.

Hennepin County Commissioner Heather Edelson asked whether some of the $7 million annual operating cost will be reimbursed.

"We'll do everything we can to get other people to pay for this — meaning the state or federal government — or at least a portion of it," Hough said.

Down the road, Hough is looking at potentially sharing the cost and work with other counties in the region.

Hennepin County is just one of many communities across Minnesota running into problems finding places to send kids with complex needs. As it works on its center, county officials are also assembling a work group of metro area counties, as well as Olmsted County, to discuss regional solutions. County leaders are also preparing to push state lawmakers to make changes in the upcoming session.

The new crisis stabilization center will buy the county some time, Commissioner Jeffrey Lunde said. But he said if there aren't broad statewide changes to address licensing, staffing and other issues with Minnesota's mental health treatment system they will run into the same backlog as other places.

"This is a good solution to get kids stabilized," he said. "And I think we have got to double down with the Legislature to fix the system."