Charlotte nonprofit seeking solutions to state’s psychiatric bed crisis

Youth Villages runs an Intercept program to keep at-risk kids at home with their families.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Amidst a statewide shortage of resources for psychiatric care, one local organization is seeking innovative solutions to the youth mental health crisis.

“I do think kids and families are best raised together, and anything we can do to further that effort is time well spent,” Gwen Prince, regional supervisor of the Youth Villages Charlotte office, said.

Prince highlighted their Intercept program, an alternative to out-of-home placement for at-risk children.

“We work pretty intensively with a family, about three times a week, guided to help them gain stability,” she said. “We work with families for anywhere from four to nine months, the median being about six months.”

RELATED: NC lawmakers weigh changes to involuntary commitment laws amid psychiatric bed crisis

She says keeping at-risk kids at home is even more crucial in North Carolina, given the state’s shortage of psychiatric care resources. At January’s meeting for the Committee on Involuntary Commitment and Public Safety, State Rep. Hugh Blackwell said the state has over 300 beds sitting empty.

“We can’t find nurses, we can’t find CNAs, we can’t find the people to staff them, so therefore they are closed,” Blackwell said.

He’s chairing the new committee that seeks to fill gaps in the mental health and justice systems. Prince says bed space is only one piece of that.

“Psychiatric beds are a short-term solution. So even when the psychiatric beds are open, those are 60-to-90-day solutions,” Prince said. “You’re really just working on a couple of individualized concerns with that youth, and then they’re returning to their family who might not have built those skills. It’s hard not to create this revolving door of short-term hospitalizations, which we do see a lot in Intercept.”

At the same time, this week is the annual budget retreat for the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners. Wednesday’s meeting had a major focus on mental health resources as the solution to juvenile crime.

Prince says addressing the crisis will require collective effort from nonprofits, the county, and state: “Collaboration versus competition.”

The next meeting of the NCGA committee is scheduled for Feb. 10.

Contact Julie Kay at [email protected] and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.

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