The former Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center in Essex will soon be home to something new.”This is a huge day for us,” said Jennifer Fitch, Vermont’s commissioner of Buildings and General Services.Dozens of state leaders and community members came to the site Friday morning to symbolically break ground on what will be a new $20.4 million mental health facility with 16 beds.It’s a resource that lawmakers said is long overdue.”A lack of a facility like this one has been putting stress on our mental health care system for years,” said Sen. Dick Mazza, who represents the Grand Isle district.The new treatment center is replacing the state’s mental health facility in Middlesex for people who need serious care.It was built as a temporary structure after Tropical Storm Irene destroyed the state psychiatric hospital in Waterbury in 2011.Federal District Court Judge Christina Reiss has toured the central Vermont site and said she sees the need for an upgrade. “The trailers were staffed by amazing people, but trailers themselves had almost no natural light. There was almost no room to engage in therapeutic services. There was nowhere to get meaningful, physical exercise. How could you get well here? What about the environment would give you hope,” she said.Experts agree that the new facility needs to be a place for healing, which is why it’s being designed to have shared community spaces for meeting up, gardening and to practice activities that enable residents to go back to their communities as soon as possible.”We know today that care facilities that feel more like a home than an institution and that allow easy access to nature help residents feel safe and in turn aids recovery,” said Emily Hawes, commissioner of Vermont’s Department of Mental Health. Once the new facility is completed in 2022, it’ll be another option, alongside the state psychiatric hospital in Berlin, for people who need care.It’s expected to open in the spring of 2023.
The former Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center in Essex will soon be home to something new.
“This is a huge day for us,” said Jennifer Fitch, Vermont’s commissioner of Buildings and General Services.
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Dozens of state leaders and community members came to the site Friday morning to symbolically break ground on what will be a new $20.4 million mental health facility with 16 beds.
It’s a resource that lawmakers said is long overdue.
“A lack of a facility like this one has been putting stress on our mental health care system for years,” said Sen. Dick Mazza, who represents the Grand Isle district.
The new treatment center is replacing the state’s mental health facility in Middlesex for people who need serious care.
It was built as a temporary structure after Tropical Storm Irene destroyed the state psychiatric hospital in Waterbury in 2011.
Federal District Court Judge Christina Reiss has toured the central Vermont site and said she sees the need for an upgrade.
“The trailers were staffed by amazing people, but trailers themselves had almost no natural light. There was almost no room to engage in therapeutic services. There was nowhere to get meaningful, physical exercise. How could you get well here? What about the environment would give you hope,” she said.
Experts agree that the new facility needs to be a place for healing, which is why it’s being designed to have shared community spaces for meeting up, gardening and to practice activities that enable residents to go back to their communities as soon as possible.
“We know today that care facilities that feel more like a home than an institution and that allow easy access to nature help residents feel safe and in turn aids recovery,” said Emily Hawes, commissioner of Vermont’s Department of Mental Health.
Once the new facility is completed in 2022, it’ll be another option, alongside the state psychiatric hospital in Berlin, for people who need care.
It’s expected to open in the spring of 2023.
