The 106-year-old Chicago social services agency Ada S. McKinley Community Services has opened what it calls a “Youth Crisis Stabilization Center” in the Englewood neighborhood on the city’s south side.
The center is in a building at 60th and Wentworth, along the Dan Ryan Expressway.
And it will serve kids who need help.
Dr. Tom Nutter is a psychiatrist and the Chief Behavioral Health Officer for Cook County.
He said “it isn’t easy to be a kid these days,” noting that the percentage of young people with mental health issues is significantly higher than it was just a generation ago.
“Knowing these realities, we are proud to support the new Ada S.
McKinley Youth Crisis Stabilization Center,” he said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
He called it “a place of refuge for youth in crisis, a safe, supportive place to go when folks feel like the walls are closing in. I’ve often said one of the things I like most about being a psychiatrist is being able to be there for people when they’re at the corner of hope and despair, that’s exactly the kind of place that this will be.”
Cook County provided a grant of nearly a million dollars for the center.
"We’re committed to putting resources directly into the hands of trusted community-based organizations like this one,” said County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. “For far too long, our young people in crisis, particularly on the south and west sides, have been forced into a narrow and unacceptable system of choices: hospitalization or involvement in our criminal justice system. This new Crisis Stabilization unit offers something fundamentally different.”
The center is a 3-million-dollar public-private investment.
And a first on the South Side.
The center also provides other services, including programs for seniors with developmental disabilities and job training.