DuPage County’s new Crisis Recovery Center (CRC) is now open, offering 24/7 immediate support for individuals experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis.
The CRC at 117 N County Farm Road in Wheaton is the first facility of its kind in Illinois to provide mental health crisis services for both youth and adults. Its addition to DuPage County Health Department’s behavioral health services completes the next critical step in the Department’s decades-long effort to create a comprehensive crisis care system based on a framework of “someone to call, someone to respond, and somewhere to go.”
The CRC will reduce unnecessary hospital emergency room visits, and reduce interactions with law enforcement that put a strain on public resources and are often not well-suited to address behavioral health crises. Individuals, family members or first responders will be able to bring those experiencing a crisis to the CRC, where they will be screened and cared for by trained mental health and substance use professionals, then connected with a “warm hand off” to community resources for continued support.
At full capacity, the Crisis Recovery Center will be able to serve up to 42 people at a time and up to approximately 15,000 each year. DCHD crisis services are supported by a dedicated team of about 160 staff, including psychiatrists/psychiatric nurse practitioners, case managers and people with lived experience.