Round 5: Napa County Health and Human Service Agency

Highlights​

Through BHCIP Round 5: Crisis and Behavioral Health Continuum funding, Napa County HHSA will soon double its crisis psychiatric bed count for children and create a new safe, healthy space dedicated exclusively to children and youth. The new CSU—Children’s Services Expansion will be an important upgrade from the current children’s facility, which is housed within Napa County HHSA’s adult crisis services.

The BHCIP funds will be used to rehabilitate 2,980 square feet of a building that is currently unoccupied. The new facility, with an entrance separate from the adult services facility, will offer a calming room, therapeutic milieu space, and intake area. Services will include crisis intervention, emergency psychiatric evaluation and medication services for children and youth in a mental health crisis, medication assessment and administration, comprehensive care coordination, safety/discharge planning, and, when necessary, facilitation of admission to psychiatric inpatient hospitalization.

The facility’s trauma-informed, client-focused, and culturally and linguistically appropriate services will be focused on wellness and recovery, and will include outreach to communities that have not historically received many services, specifically the county’s Hispanic and Latinx populations. Community group offerings will provide support to caregivers, including shared resources, as well as peer support for children and youth.

In addition to allowing for children and adults who are experiencing psychiatric crises to have their own spaces, the expansion supports the broader goal of keeping children in home settings and their communities, rather than having to send them to psychiatric hospitals in other counties.

“This is a rare opportunity to allow us to dedicate this space to enhancing our focus on supporting the children of Napa County by increasing their resiliency and helping to mitigate adverse childhood experiences,” said Jennifer Yasumoto, Director of Napa County HHSA.
Increasing the crisis psychiatric assessment and crisis stabilization services available to Napa County’s children and youth will also have a positive effect on local emergency departments, which will no longer be the default treatment location for children experiencing psychiatric distress. In turn, that means improved wait times and reduced staffing needs in the emergency departments, benefitting all county residents directly.