Sunday, May 11, 2025
5/11/2025
Community Project Funding/Congressionally Directed Spending - Construction - Address: 8221 Willow Oaks Corporate Dr, Fairfax, VA 22031 Project Director: Sebastian Tezna Contact Phone: 703-207-7788 Contact Email: Sebastian.tezna@fairfaxcounty.gov Website Address: www.fairfaxcounty.gov/csb Project Description: The Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board’s (CSB) Sharon Bulova Center for Community Health renovation project will serve to enhance a critical community-based behavioral health treatment center that provides 24/7/365 access to services. In Virginia, CSBs serve as the public behavioral health providers in communities. The Center serves individuals from a large geographic area – over 400 square miles. County leaders support a continuum of crisis services with strong justice-behavioral health partnerships. The renovation project seeks to meet growing community needs. The design and space are not conducive to the growth of programs and services provided at the Center. This location offers 24/7 emergency behavioral health/assessment services and provides an array of other behavioral health and wellness/health promotion services. Renovation is needed to sustain and expand operations as there have been significant programming changes since the opening of the building in 2016. The redesign will expand the capacity for serving individuals in a behavioral health crisis in the least restrictive setting. The renovations will provide proper design to address a gap in our continuum of crisis services by implementing a program to de-escalate individuals’ level of distress and provide an alternative to an emergency department/inpatient/residential level of care. This 23-hour program is to ensure individuals struggling with behavioral health crises are served in the least restrictive setting. Often these individuals have long wait times in busy emergency departments, which is not conducive to meeting their immediate behavioral health needs. This multi-disciplinary approach to behavioral health care includes law enforcement, peer support specialists, nurses, and clinicians and requires an efficient space. The project will also address security concerns that have emerged at the Center and will be needed for the 23-hour program The renovations will help provide the proper design to best implement this program. The Center is a critical component of the county’s crisis continuum. A community the size of Fairfax (1.2 million residents) requires multiple services along a continuum to ensure equitable crisis response and linkage to services. The county launched its Diversion First initiative in 2016. Diversion First provides alternatives to incarceration for people with mental illness, co-occurring substance use disorders, or developmental disabilities, who encounter the criminal justice system for low-level offenses. The goal is to intercede and provide assessment, treatment or needed support to prevent repeated encounters with the criminal justice system, promote a safer community, and enhance public safety. Diversion First provides significant economic benefits to the county as it is far more cost-effective to serve individuals in the community than to incarcerate them. It costs approximately $181 per day to hold an individual in the Adult Detention Center. By contrast, it costs $60 per day to provide supportive community residential services and $21 per day to provide intensive case management. Additionally, the daily savings from avoiding a hospitalization is $959 per individual. The Center is a key component of Diversion First. This project will enhance the county’s significant local investments in community-based behavioral health crisis services. Examples of current crisis continuum services include 24/7/365 onsite law enforcement; medical assessment for psychiatric/crisis stabilization admission; a multi-disciplinary Community Response Team; 23-hour crisis stabilization beds; and a regional hub for contracted services for the transport of involuntary psychiatric admissions.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).