Travis County’s Mental Health Diversion Center takes another step

Last week, Travis County kicked off the design portion of its long-awaited mental health diversion center and central intake project. The lead architectural firms, Brinkley Sargent Wiginton Architects, Kirksey Architecture, and Pulitzer Bogard, will work with county staff and UT’s Dell Medical School to conceptualize the physical diversion center, which will take approximately 18 months to build after design is complete. This is the next step in a long-term effort to divert people experiencing mental health crises away from the jail, and comes after Integral Care took the first step last year, expanding its walk-in clinic on Airport Boulevard to 24/7 care and adding a new 23-hour observation service for people at urgent risk of harm. 

Travis County Judge Andy Brown says the medical school’s input is key, as an original study from May 2022 commissioned by the county led to many of the policy decisions the county has made regarding diversion.

“They will help us say hey, you need this many psychiatric nurse practitioners, you need this kind of room – they’re going to advise on the medical, mental health needs,” he said.

Brown has toured many different diversion facilities across the country, taking design inspiration from Nashville, Lubbock, and Tucson, among others, but he said the goal is to figure out: “What is the perfect mental health diversion center for Travis County?”

A broad range of stakeholders including Integral Care staff, first responders and legal representatives will provide input on the design, which requires two key components: A psychiatric hospital where people in acute crisis can go, and a longer-term respite facility, or diversion center, to act as an alternative to the jail. Travis County needs both, Brown says, because the Austin State Hospital, our de facto psychiatric hospital, “is under-financed, under-resourced, and we can’t use it as a result, basically. So this would be something that Integral Care would run, or Central Health, or the medical school, or some combination of those, and the focus would be: let’s give these people not only the crisis psychiatric care that they need to stabilize (temporarily), but let’s figure out how to make sure they don’t come back – or they come back a lot less often.”

Brown says a key component of a comprehensive mental health safety net is to utilize Tucson’s “no wrong door” approach: “We want a place where law enforcement, EMS and, eventually, people on their own can know that this is the place we take people. And then we, as the diversion center and psychiatric hospital in the county, sort out where they need to go.” Currently, Integral Care’s new 24-hour walk-in program is voluntary, meaning first responders would need to take someone who is too intoxicated to the Sobering Center first, or someone with severe and chronic mental illness might be too ill to choose it for themselves. That means police officers often choose the easiest option – the jail, which can and does often take people regardless of their mental state.

County staff is still in the process of identifying a location for the building, and the design team will provide updates to the commissioners court monthly.

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