A Place to Go offers mental health stabilization services at only 2nd location statewide

PLYMOUTH — With the State of New Hampshire’s 10-Year Mental Health Plan at the forefront of their minds, local medical and social services providers are collaborating to more efficiently and effectively deliver mental health stabilization services to residents, all while keeping them out of hospital emergency departments.

Representatives of the state Department of Health and Human Services met with others from Concord Hospital-Laconia and Lakes Region Mental Health Center Tuesday morning to discuss a collaborative effort called “A Place to Go”, which will offer mental health and substance use crisis care to those who are not in need of emergency medical services.

The state’s “Mission Zero”, a plan to eliminate hospital emergency department psychiatric boarding by 2025, will add resources and attention and work with community partners to address the problem head-on.

“We’re already getting good results,” DHHS Commissioner Lori Weaver said Tuesday morning. “We know it works.”

Frequently, individuals experiencing acute behavioral health crises wind up in an emergency department while waiting for care in another setting. Mission Zero aims to address several main barriers to care: individuals who’ve been unable to access timely care for their psychological needs or emerging crises; inpatient supply and coordination issues, which may have resulted in patients unable to secure transfer to the appropriate setting due to a lack of beds; and unnecessarily long lengths of stay in inpatient psychiatric facilities because of a lack of adequate support for safe discharge.

“It’s another box checked for Mission Zero,” Weaver said, noting it should help clients be seen and discharged more quickly.

A Place to Go — located at the Plymouth campus of Lakes Region Mental Health Center and operated by employees of the same, along with those of Concord Hospital-Laconia and other providers contracted in from Navigating Recovery — is an unassuming cabin on the outside, but contains a wealth of resources on the inside. 

“This is just such a nice union of services,” Corey Gately, director of substance use services at Concord Hospital-Laconia, said.

Walking inside the facility, a visitor would notice furnishing similar to those found in the average home. There’s a kitchenette, bathroom, a comfortable lounge area and a room meant for children at the cottage. Upstairs, there’s an office where staff members do their work and a treatment room with a desk, chairs and a sofa for clients.

LRMHC leaders agreed to pilot A Place to Go, a short-term crisis stabilization center and one of just two slated for operation across the Granite State. Another opened its doors in Derry in July, and now clients in central New Hampshire will have access to a heightened level of treatment and service. 

Clients stay in the cottage for up to 24 hours and receive peer support and other services to help them become stable. They’re afforded help in overcoming barriers to health and wellness, including support in securing housing or employment.

Access to peer support services isn’t just a big deal — it “is the deal”, LRMHC President and Chief Executive Officer Maggie Pritchard said, emphasizing the importance to clients of working with others who have similar life experiences under their belts.

Now, A Place to Go receives referrals from mental health and service organizations, but that system could expand to accept walk-ins or referrals from law enforcement eventually, LRMHC Director of Acute Services Kimberly Goldberg explained Tuesday morning. 

“It could be almost any crisis that they’re experiencing.”

Clients who receive services at the cottage have likely already undergone an evaluation and have been determined to be “safe enough” to utilize the services there, that they’re not a threat to themselves or others. Upon their arrival, they’ll have access to peer support specialists, employees trained in recovery work and who have often themselves walked that road before.

“We will support them through a mental health crisis,” Goldberg said.

A Place to Go is tentatively set for operation in early February.

The goal of these services is relatively simple: help address the DHHS 10-year plan to fundamentally transform crisis and inpatient care through new models, leaning heavily on peer support.

An agreement with The Doorway — a service which helps individuals connect with substance use services throughout the state and includes peer recovery support, medication-assisted treatment, recovery housing, workforce opportunities, training and education — has staff co-located at A Place to Go, along with employees of LRMHC and Navigating Recovery, who work in concert with The Doorway at Concord Hospital-Laconia.

“We don’t have single-issue lives,” DHHS Opioid Response Director Jennifer Sabin said. “We can’t deliver single-issue services.”

Pritchard said the Plymouth office was identified as a potential location for the second such service center in the state because clients there didn’t have convenient access to the same. Such identifications are important as the state moves toward broader behavioral health integration. 

“There was a gaping hole here in Plymouth,” she said.

The forthcoming services at the cottage aside, the other is in the southern part of the state. By the end of 2025, the state hopes to open a third, Weaver said.

While A Place to Go hasn’t yet opened, The Doorway has assisted six or seven patients at that location already. The Doorway is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. 

Those in need of acute mental health care can access resources by dialing 988. The Doorway services can be accessed through the hospitality services desk at Concord Hospital-Laconia or by calling 603-934-8905 during business hours, or calling 211 anytime. 

“The goal is to get people back to a calm, safe place,” Sabin said.

To learn more about Mission Zero, navigate to dhhs.nh.gov/programs-services/mental-health/mission-zero.