Arlington’s Department of Human Services will now be able to staff its Mental Health Crisis Intervention Center around the clock thanks to a state grant.
DHS received a $222,225 grant, from the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Development Services, to hire a mental health therapist and a human services specialist, according to a County Board report. The new positions will help keep the Crisis Intervention Center staffed 24 hours a day instead of having on-call staff, said Kurt Larrick, a spokesman with DHS.
“Live coverage is critical in providing individuals in mental health crisis with timely access to services, assessments and treatment, and it helps ensure that law enforcement officers are able to return to service in a timely manner,” according to the Board report.
Police officers will drop off people they suspect have serious mental illnesses at the Crisis Intervention Center, where staff can help connect them with needed services, helping those with possible mental illness to get help instead of jail time.
The center is part of the Crisis Intervention Team, a partnership between DHS and the Arlington County Police Department to help train officers in handling those with suspected mental illnesses and combating mental health stigma.
As of July 23, more than half of ACPD officers were trained to be part of CIT. The training also extends to airport and Pentagon police, as well as other police forces in Northern Virginia and D.C., according to the CIT website.
While CIT has received funding before, this time it had to apply for the grant, Larrick said.
“We have received funding support from the state for this program in the past, but in this instance it was a competitive grant for which we applied and were chosen based on the merits of our program,” he said.
The Crisis Intervention Center has already seen success. There was a 19 percent increase of people brought to the center instead of jail from 2012 to 2014, and the county saves about $5,620 per person with a serious mental illness by keeping them out of jail, according to the Board report.
“Allowing people with serious mental illness to receive treatment in the community as opposed to in a correctional setting, where they are unnecessarily criminalized, results in improved outcomes for the individual in crisis and significant cost savings,” according to the report.
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St. Charles offers a play-based curriculum in a welcoming, Christ-centered environment.
Our program focuses on socio-emotional development and kindergarten readiness through hands-on and engaging activities. Our programs offer different schedules ranging from 7:30 am-5:30 pm for students, ages 2-5. We feature a full-day Jr. kindergarten class for older 4’s/5’s. Our facility includes a full-sized gymnasium, school chapel, and library. All of our students enjoy music and physical education weekly. Children have an opportunity to participate in enrichment classes such as soccer, basketball, ballet, and science.
We offer Summer Camp with weekly themes and twice a week water play, including Fun Friday moon bounce. Please join us for our Open House Feb. 3 at 9:30 am and 11:00 am. Click here to sign-up.
For more information or to schedule a tour, visit us at www.stcharlesarlington.org or call (703) 527-0608.

If you are a lifelong learner over 50+ who wants to make new friends, power up your brain, and enjoy a wide-variety college-level courses, Encore Learning is for you. An Arlington based nonprofit, Encore Learning offers courses in the arts, theater, literature, history, technology and more. This semester we offer our most popular course, Global Hot Spots as well as 25 new courses. Courses are presented either online or in-person at George Mason University at Virginia Square and other Arlington locations.
Join the free presentation to learn about courses and meet the instructors. This is Encore Learning’s signature event to highlight the upcoming semester with brief presentations by each instructor.
The Spring Course Preview event is Thursday, February 2nd at 9:30 AM via Zoom:
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