Montgomery County Officials to Give Project Update on July 20 About Behavioral Health Diversion Center Designed to Help Individuals in Crisis

For Immediate Release: Thursday, July 6, 2023

Montgomery County officials will host a project update on the Diversion Center planned in Rockville on Thursday, July 20 at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of the Executive Office Building, located at 101 Monroe Street in Rockville. The meeting also will be accessible virtually via Microsoft TEAMS.  

The behavioral health diversion center will treat individuals experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis. The center will be located on Seven Locks Road in Rockville.

County officials participating in the July 20 meeting will include: 

• Earl Stoddard, Assistant Chief Administrative Officer
• Rolando Santiago, Chief, Behavioral Health and Crisis Services, Department of Health and Human Services
• David Dise, Director, Department of General Services (DGS), and Greg Ossont, Deputy Director, DGS
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 The County is opening the diversion center to help reduce the use of emergency rooms and jail. The center will be available to individuals in crisis who are dropped off by emergency medical technicians (EMTs) or police, persons transferred from hospitals, persons who are released from the central processing unit at the detention center, and inmates released from jail and court programs. A team of multidisciplinary professionals will staff the center including nurses, licensed mental health and addiction professionals, peer specialists and resource navigators.

The center will provide a variety of behavioral health services including triage, crisis stabilization and warm hand-off referrals to appropriate services. These services are designed to stabilize individuals experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis during the first hours and up to three days. The center will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.

An initial public meeting was held in October 2022 to hear from City of Rockville officials and community members. A second meeting this past April provided an update on questions raised at the October 2022 meeting related to procedures for individuals brought to the diversion center. 

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Release ID: 23-288
Media Contact: Mary Anderson 301-529-7669
Categories: Health