Santa Barbara County’s crisis-stabilization unit has reopened, and is designated as a locked mental health facility, so it can accept clients on “5150” mental health holds.

The hope is to “be able to get people the care they need during a crisis, but hopefully stabilize them to avoid needing a longer-term hospitalization,” according to Suzanne Grimmesey of the Behavioral Wellness Department. 

The 8-bed CSU was underutilized for years, partly because of its status as a voluntary/unlocked facility. Santa Barbara County closed it in May 2022 because of staffing shortages.

It recently reopened, Grimmesey said, and received the Lantermann-Petris-Short locked-facility designation last week.

“It’s locked but it’s a different type of an environment; it’s a home-like environment that doesn’t feel like a hospital setting,” Grimmesey said.

The CSU can divert some clients from the Psychiatric Health Facility, which “really enhances our overall system,” Grimmesey said.

CSUs provide lower-level care and can hold people up to 24 hours.

Research shows that “crisis residential care is as effective as other longer psychiatric inpatient care at improving symptoms and functioning,” county leaders said Monday when announcing the LPS designation. 

“It’s a really good thing; we’ve been advocating for that change for years,” said Lynne Gibbs of NAMI Santa Barbara and Families ACT!

“It’s up to a 24-hour facility, so some people can be stabilized within that period and continue at home, and others need more than that,” Gibbs said. “But it can keep people out of the emergency rooms, where they’ve been spending, some of them, considerable amounts of time waiting for a bed to open up.”

People are placed on 5150 holds if they meet at least one of the following criteria: the person is a danger to him or herself, the person is a danger to others, or the person is gravely disabled by their mental illness.

The CSU at Santa Maria’s Marian Regional Medical Center has been “working pretty well as a triage point for them, so hopefully we’ll have the same success with ours,” Gibbs said.

Since it opened in 2022, the Santa Maria CSU has dramatically reduced the number of people on mental health holds in the hospital’s emergency room, Dr. David Ketelaar has said. It served almost 600 people in its first year of operation.

Behavioral Wellness staff said the program discharged about 40% clients to a higher level of care, and 60% of clients to a lower level of care, which were the outcomes they wanted.

Last week, the county Board of Supervisors renewed its agreement with Marian for its CSU services, at $10.08 million for three years.  

Shortage of Treatment Beds

Advocacy groups continue to call for more acute and sub-acute mental health treatment beds, like the 16 available at the county’s Psychiatric Health Facility.

That’s not enough beds for the local population, according to a recent state study, and the shortage leads to people on 5150 holds waiting a long time for a treatment placement, often in emergency rooms.

Sometimes the holds expire before they’re ever placed in a facility.  

“This is why we continue to see people with mental illness cycling from the street to the emergency room to the jail and back again,” Gibbs said. “So I would say our priority is the need for subacute beds, where people who are the most ill can stay for longer-term treatment and then step down to outpatient care and community-based treatment.”

County 24/7 Access Line

The county’s Crisis Response and Services access line is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week at 888.868.1649.

It can be used to contact the mobile crisis team countywide, or get help receiving mental health services, Grimmesey said.