Jill Schramm/MDN Open Arms crisis and transitional living center provides a living area, kitchen and 10 bedrooms, sleeping up to 12 people.

A gap in mental health services in Minot was filled June 30 with the opening of North Central Human Service Center’s Open Arms crisis and transitional living center.

The need for the service has been apparent since a previous transitional living center closed in 2012, said Laurie Gotvaslee, executive director at NCHS.

The Legislature had authorized funding for a center, but a call for proposals to provide the service drew no interested parties. The funding later was removed from the budget as a result of state cutbacks due to revenue shortfalls.

Gotvaslee said the Department of Human Services and NCHS looked at whether existing funds could be repurposed to revive the project. A decision was made to phase out Kay’s Place, which served girls ages 12 to 19 in Minot, and redirect staff and funding to a new crisis and transitional living center.

Gotvaslee explained the services of Kay’s Place either have been long provided or have since been picked up by other agencies. NCHS needed to get its focus back onto its core services, of which serving its mental health clients is primary, she said.

Plans for the new transitional center gained momentum when a landlord came forward to offer a downtown building that is next door to the Harmony Center, a social center for people living with mental illness.

Gotvaslee said the name Open Arms came about because the landlord greeted North Central’s clients with open arms, and that’s the atmosphere the center wants to continue to offer to residents.

The staff at Kay’s Place are making a smooth transition to Open Arms since the same skill sets are used, Gotvaslee said. In addition to a director, a social worker and direct-care associates handle crisis management, medications and other needs of clients. Open Arms is an open facility, allowing residents to come and go as they please throughout the day.

“It’s a safe, stabilizing setting, where adults with mental illness can receive short-term services from professionals to prevent hospitalization or transition from in-patient psychiatric care to community living,” Gotvaslee said.

People must be clients of NCHS to be eligible to stay at Open Arms. The agency screens individuals to ensure they are a good fit for the residential facility. Length of stay will vary, but, generally, a crisis client might stay up to a month and transitional living client up to six months.

Many times clients may need medication monitoring temporarily or may need that extra attention post-hospitalization before they are comfortable returning home, Gotvaslee said.

“This is short-term,” Gotvaslee said. “It’s an intermediate environment to assist people in transitioning back into their homes. We want them to live in their homes with their families.”

Remodeled to accommodate the program, Open Arms has 10 bedrooms, of which two are double bunked to make it possible to accommodate up to 12 people. The center is open to men and women.

Open Arms is addressing a void that has existed because of the lack of a crisis and transition center in Minot.

“It’s been a struggle. We have done some very intensive monitoring with case managers going into homes,” Gotvaslee said. Some clients have had to leave Minot to stay in a transition center in Williston, which Gotvaslee said is not ideal.

“Mental illness is just like physical illness. You heal better when you are in your own community,” she said.