A new treatment center is opening in Doylestown next year for people facing criminal prosecution while addressing behavioral and mental health needs.
Bucks County Commissioners on Wednesday approved a series of construction contracts for the development of the Diversion, Assessment, Rehabilitation and Treatment Center at 1270 Almshouse Road, totaling approximately $16.4 million.
The 28-bed center is part of a larger collaboration between the county’s criminal justice and behavioral health systems to direct offenders to court-supervised programs. The new center would function as a reentry resource for individuals released from prison or psychiatric hospitals and county mental health court defendants, to provide community-based services to prevent incarceration.
Traditional judicial processes and incarceration have proven ineffective at changing outcomes for offenders with severe, persistent, and untreated mental illness, mental health experts say. Incarceration exacerbates symptoms, disrupts treatment regimens and contributes to victimization and suicide, they argue.
The county has worked for years to address the mental and behavioral health needs of those involved in the criminal justice system.
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New county center to open in 2024
The new center will be built on the site of the former Women’s Community Correction Center. The remaining WCCC inmates were transferred to the main Bucks County Correctional Facility.
«Asbestos mitigation has been completed and demolition has been completed,» said Bucks County Behavioral Health/Development Programs Administrator Donna Duffy-Bell. «In terms of timeline, we’re looking at the end of 2024 for the program to open.»
The contract approvals all went to Pennsylvania-based companies.
The commissioners approved the $384,000 fire prevention contract with Guy M. Cooper, Inc, based in Willow Grove; the $1,073,174 plumbing contract with West Reading-based Vision Mechanical, Inc; the $2,179,900 mechanical engineering contract with Plumsteadville-based Integrity Mechanical, Inc; the $2,495,000 electrical contract with the Farfield Company of Lilitz; and the $10,299,000 general construction contract with Magnum, Inc., based in Warminster.
Duffy-Bell said county taxpayers will not bear the brunt of funding this $31 million project.
«The construction is largely being funded by what is called health choice reinvestment money,» Duffy-Bell said. «These are funds that become available through the County Management of Healthcare Choices Health Care Contract, those funds can be used for the one-time construction of a facility that will provide services and support to individuals with behavioral health needs.»
The project will also be funded through the American Rescue Plan and in grants through the Health Resources and Services Administration.
Duffy-Bell said Magellan Behavioral Health will also provide funding for ongoing operations.
Duffy-Bell said the target population will be individuals with mental illnesses and who also have a current interface or involvement with the criminal justice system.
Part of the center’s intent is to remove patients from incarceration and eliminate reoffending.
This will be an adults-only facility that treats both men and women, Duffy-Bell said.
The 23,000-square-foot center will have a maximum capacity of 28 patients.
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Center’s takes a three-level approach to addressing behavioral and mental health
The center, Duffy-Bell said, will work with a three-pronged approach to addressing the mental health of its clients.
The first will be a short-term observation unit that will have a capacity of eight people at any one time and will have an effective stay of two weeks.
The second is the reset of the proficiency unit.
«Sometimes people get involved in the criminal justice system but cannot proceed to trial because they are not deemed legally competent to have access to due process,» Duffy-Bell said. «Then they must be restored to jurisdiction before their case proceeds in the criminal justice system.»
Finally, the center will have a residential treatment facility, serving up to 16 clients.
“It will be a transitional housing program with treatment and support,” Duffy-Bell said. «Then people can spend nine to 13 months in that unit, regaining psychiatric skills and stability to have the best chance of continuing in the community to be successful and to be supported in their recovery.»
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