By Drew Saunders
A lack of access to mental health facilities and professionals creates some of the biggest barriers for people to get help, especially when it isn’t obvious where someone in the middle of a mental health episode or substance abuse problem is supposed to go. Central Nassau Guidance and Counseling Services is aiming to eliminate that problem with the construction of its new 24-hour mental health, urgent care facility, which will have its groundbreaking ceremony Nov. 14.
The groundbreaking will take place from 10 a.m. to noon. CN Guidance leadership and an unspecified number of local officials will attend the event, which is open to the public.
“The purpose of the community crisis center is for adults and children on Long Island who are experiencing a mental health or substance use disorder crisis to receive assistance. Staff will provide triage, assessment, evaluation, observation, treatment and discharge planning services in a home-like environment,” program director Sharayah Sanon told the Long Island Press.
The centrality of the 950 South Oyster Bay Road location is key to the project. The fact that it will be in a centralized place on the border between Plainview and Hicksville is meant to give Long Islanders who don’t know how to get help for themselves or a loved one a one-stop location without having to go to the city or be put on a long waiting list. The 6,000-square-foot facility will share its location with the existing CN Counseling’s Certified Community Behavioral Health Center.
“According to recent studies, a typical visit to a Long Island emergency room now takes just under four hours — 75 minutes longer than the national average — data that experts say show hospitals are struggling with patient volume, staff shortages, and outdated facilities,” Sanon said. “This facility, in partnership with police and local providers, will produce a needed 24-seven, 365 [days a year] walk-in care alternative to Emergency Departments and jail for people experiencing mental health and/or substance use crises.
There they will be able to get the help they need and stabilized before being directly connected to more long-term comprehensive services.”
The six Hope Rooms and two family rooms staffed with professionals in mental health and addiction treatment that the facility will provide is sorely needed. In 2022, 1,765 New Yorkers died by suicide, the latest year that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data are available. That is an increase from the 1,660 who died in 2021, and the 1,642 deaths reported in 2020.
“Mental health is a crisis that plagues Long Island just like any other demographic area in the country. Residents of Long Island have noted that mental health concerns are at the top of their list of concerns,” Sanon explained. “Substance use rates have skyrocketed in the past few years following COVID and a high anxiety environment in general.”
Stigma is another barrier to help. That is why CN employs peer advocates, who have gone through mental health problems or addiction themselves, and can provide a level of understanding that can ease the way of people seeking treatment through advocacy and advice through mutual experience and their professional certifications.
According to CN marketing director Andrew Weissberg, CN is working with Long-Island-based Fusion Architecture on the project. They plan to wrap up construction and open doors to patients in 2025.
Attempts to interview the Nassau County Mental Health Department were not successful.
