Maureen Dunleavy, the Regional Vice President of the Guidance Care Center, an organization that has locations all over the Keys, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5 FM this morning to talk about the organization.
The Guidance Care Center has been in the Florida Keys for more than 50 years.
Dunleavy said, “The Guidance Care Center has been in this community for 51 years. We’re actually on our 52nd year and we have three outpatient sites Key West, Marathon and Key Largo. Our Marathon site also has an inpatient unit that has the only detox in the county for adults and then we have a crisis stabilization unit there and we do a lot of community based services. We’ve got an assisted living facility for people with mental illness in Marathon. So lots and lots of services, the entire continuum of care. Everything can be reached through our main number 305-434-7660 or people can check it out on the website.”
The National Night Out is coming up in August.
Dunleavy said, “It’s obviously a national event and the goal is to bring law enforcement together with the community and with all the community partners, all the law enforcement agencies, so not only law enforcement, but firefighters and military, and then all the community agencies that partner with law enforcement. It’s always the first Tuesday in August. So that’s coming up, it’s always a good time with back to school. So it’ll be Tuesday, August 6 from 5:30 to 7:30. It’s a family events, obviously there’s booths, they have different things that they’re showcasing. I know they’ve brought out the canine dogs and done demonstrations. They have music, free food, beverages, and they’re hosting it throughout four sites. So Key West PD is the host for Key West and that’ll be at Bayview Park, and then Monroe County Sheriff’s Office is the law enforcement agency for the rest of the Keys and they’ll be doing three sites, which is Marathon at the sheriff’s hangar, Islamorada at Founders Park and in Key Largo at the park up there. So all four sites have the same date and the same time that this event will be going on.”
The Guidance Care Center gears up for back to school time.
Dunleavy said, “Summer is kind of a quieter time, a lot more vacationing, people are out of school, they’re not here and so typically things slow down a bit. Then obviously, all of our children’s counselors, they are all co-located in the schools, but they work 12 months a year. So they also do home visits, and are continuing to follow those youths. So it’s not like the services stop and we don’t have anything for the summer. It’s ongoing. Then our mobile crisis team, of course, is 24/7, which is not only youth, but also adults. We partner with law enforcement a lot because if they end up on a call, that’s really a behavioral health or mental health issue, we want to get our mobile crisis team out there to help facilitate and address what’s going on, so that we don’t have unnecessary arrests or unnecessary hospitalizations. Of course, we want law enforcement to focus on safety, not on behavioral health. So we work very closely with them and then all the school resource officers as well.”
Are cases involving homelessness increasing?
Dunleavy said, “We definitely are the behavioral health provider for anyone in the community, but specifically for the homeless, because we are the only agency that provides services regardless of ability to pay and all of our law enforcement officers are trained in a model called crisis intervention training. Basically, it’s how to connect with the behavioral health provider, which is us, and our mobile crisis response team to help resolve those kinds of crises and issues. We have a whole host of mental health and substance abuse services that are available to all anyone, including the homeless. So our MRT team and prevention team will be out at the National Night Out working the booth as well. So if people want to find out more about those services or more about Guidance Care Center, definitely come by, bring your kids and enjoy the events.”
Language barriers can also be an issue, but the Guidance Care Center is ready to help.
Dunleavy said, “We are very fortunate to have our mobile crisis team has English speaking crisis counselors, Creole and Spanish. Of course, all of our services at all of our sites, we have some staff that are able to speak other languages, and then we do have a translation service that we can access. So if somebody walks in the door, and the person who has happens to be sitting at the front desk, doesn’t speak the language, we can get someone on the phone to help translate to be able to direct them to where they need to be and get the services they need. We also have a lot of physicians and prescribers that speak Spanish as well as English. So we are very fortunate that we have a lot of bilingual staff throughout the Keys because yes, it is an issue and we know that those who are immigrating over, who are our English language learners to this school are at the highest risk to have crisis or to have suicide, just because of those barriers.”
There have been developments with the assisted living facility.
Dunleavy said, “We broke ground on that in May and we went through our procurement process and have a contractor and have done the bids, so now we’re getting all that legal paperwork in so that we can start actually doing the work. The permit documents are all done. So we’re going to get going on that project. We’re very excited about restoring and rebuilding our assisted living facility for adults with mental illness. That building’s been there for 40 years and it used to house 16 adults, and now it’s only 14 because of the condition of the building and the codes. So we’re very excited about getting those two additional spots open for permanent housing for adults in the near future.”
How can people contact the Guidance Care Center?
Dunleavy said, “The main number is 305-434-7660, you’ll hear a script, it’ll go through all the sites. If you’re in crisis and need to be connected to a crisis worker, press 8. You also can listen to the various programs. One is our inpatient unit for crisis stabilization and detox, two is transportation, four is Key West, five is Marathon and six is Key Largo. So you can get all the services, all the sites, and again, you can go to the website. Please come out and see us at National Night Out. We love to educate the community about what we do and we’re very grateful for our partnership with the law enforcement agencies, Key West PD and Monroe County Sheriff’s Office. It’s Tuesday, August 6 from 5:30 to 7:30.”
For more information, click here: http://www.guidancecarecenter.org/