Howard County budget includes $1M to build Sheppard Pratt Crisis Stabilization Center

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Howard County Executive Calvin Ball announced that his proposed Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 budget includes a $1 million investment to assist Sheppard Pratt’s Baltimore/Washington campus in constructing a new 16-bed crisis stabilization center in Elkridge.

This new center will help residents in crisis avoid needing higher levels of care, such as emergency departments or inpatient units and it will help other county residents transition from higher levels of care sooner than they otherwise could.

In his FY 2024 budget, Ball included $1 million in funding for Sheppard Pratt to use toward constructing its new crisis stabilization center. This added $1 million, plus the approximately $3.6 million in State support will allow Sheppard Pratt to start construction of this new facility in late 2024, with a slated opening in late 2025. 

The center will also compliment Johns Hopkins Howard County Medical Center’s new Behavioral Health Unit (BHU), by providing the hospital with the option to transfer patients, freeing up beds in the BHU. Together, the Center and the BHU will help ensure residents in crisis are receiving the right level of care they need at the right time and in the least restrictive and least costly setting.  

This center also supports Howard County’s Continuum of Care (CoC) for behavioral health by filling a gap in the availability of short-term stay crisis services. Since taking office, Ball has made it a priority to fill these gaps through the expansion of the County’s CoC and increase access to crisis, outpatient and residential services.