A bright renovated home with a back deck overlooking farm fields in Williston will house an overnight program offering mental health support for people in crisis.
The home, called Rosewood Cottage, will support two people for up to a week, and will be run by the nonprofit Pathways Vermont, in an effort to prevent people from needing to seek psychiatric care at a hospital.
“We’re going to support people to not have to experience going in and out of hospitals — that they can come to a warm, welcoming, home-like space instead of a cold institution,” Hilary Melton, the executive director at Pathways, said at an opening event for the program this week.
The service will be open to any adult in Vermont “who feels like up to a week of peer support is something they’re interested in,” said Jason Young, who will manage the home. “So somebody might be experiencing a lot of anxiety or suicidality or even psychosis — the full spectrum,” he said.
Unlike at a hospital, there won’t be any clinical staff on site. Instead, it will be staffed 24/7 by people who have lived experience with mental health problems. It’s the second program of its kind in Vermont — called a peer respite — in addition to another two-bed program in Rochester, in Windsor County, funded by the Vermont Department of Mental Health.
Pathways received a $1.3 million grant from the Four Pines Fund to run the peer respite in Williston for two years and to do research and evaluation. Then, they hope to get additional public and private funding to continue the peer respite model.
“We need one in every town,” Young said.
Have questions, comments or tips? Send us a message.
_
