MIDLAND, Texas — There is a large need for mental health services here in the Permian Basin, with those in need of support often turning to the police or emergency rooms. While those staff do the best they can, they do not have the qualified staff to help. This reality is why the Permian Basin Behavioral Health Center is on the way.
Leaders of the project are into the final months of design work on the facility. The Permian Basin Behavioral Health Center is a healthcare facility that will add new mental health services to our region, and as work continues on it, clinical programming is an integral part of the role it will serve in our communities.
Construction crews are busy laying the foundation.
“It’s 141,000 tons of dirt," said Russell Meyers, President of the Permian Basin Behavioral Health Center.
However, the foundation is about more than just dirt.
“We are trying to really identify all the services we are going to offer," said Stephanie Caples, Clinical Programming Consultant for the Permian Basin Behavioral Health Center. "Now services means what type of therapy, what modalities, but really importantly is what patient populations are we going to serve? We have a huge gap in our community of certain patient populations are not able to receive services for a lot of different reasons, so we want to close that gap."
Clinical programming does not just deal with services.
“Developing the workforce, which means educating the workforce," Caples said. "So, we’re creating programs that currently in our community don’t exist, like a behavioral health technician program, and we’re creating pathways to make sure that the learners and the students that want to go into those programs have an identified path for how they can achieve their goals. Whether it’s to become a behavioral health tech and stay that for their career, or if they want to get a master’s degree in psychology, social work or even become a psychiatrist, we’re creating that pathway.”
Pathway efforts are being made at Midland College, Odessa College, UTPB and Sul Ross State University.
“The Permian Basin Behavioral Health Center’s goal is to not just treat all of our Permian Basin community, so not just Midland-Odessa but the entire community, but we want to educate all of the learners in the West Texas community that are interested in a career in nursing or in behavioral health, mental health," Caples said.
As the process rolls on, clinical programming is foundational.
“We will continue to do our educational and workforce development programs," Caples said. "We will also be really trying to solidify the operations of what’s going to happen at the hospital. How is it going to function? Who are we going to see? What quality standards are we going to have – which are very high-quality standards at this point – but how are we going to ensure that? So, all of that has to come together simultaneously over the next two years.”
The hope is still to open the Permian Basin Behavioral Health Center at the end of 2025. Caples mentioned that they will be touring the Menninger Mental Health Facility in Houston, a premier facility in the nation, for service ideas that they could potentially tailor here to meet the needs of our Permian Basin populations.