July 2023

PSYCHIATRY

THE LIVING ROOM ADDRESSES MENTAL HEALTH IN A SAFE SPACE


The Living Room in the Northwestern Medicine Ben Gordon Center in DeKalb, Illinois offers a safe, comfortable and nonclinical space for DeKalb County residents 18 years and older who need help resolving nonemergency mental health situations. It serves as an alternative to an emergency department or psychiatric hospitalization. The Living Room’s services are available at no cost to those who visit.

"The Living Room is a safe space for individuals who are struggling with everyday stressors with their mental health. It's a place where they can come and connect with trained recovery specialists on a different level than they would with a clinician," says Sabrina Nicholson, MSW, LCSW, Behavioral Health Services manager of Operations.

Every guest of The Living Room meets with a recovery support specialist, who is a trained crisis counselor with firsthand personal experience with mental health issues or substance misuse.

“Each of our guests will get a different resource as they head out the door and back into the community. We can connect them with therapists, with psychiatrists, with primary care — all depending on their needs,” says Cheryl R. Hahn, CRSS, lead recovery support specialist. The recovery support specialists provide peer-to-peer crisis intervention and stabilization services, connect guests to community resources and make appropriate referrals to other care professionals as needed.

Every guest’s experience at the Living Room will be different based on the support they need. For some, the experience may look like just sitting with a recovery support specialist. For others it might be talking through what is going on, or even doing an activity together. 

“After guests leave, we do an exit survey and we ask them ‘Did this visit deter you from going to the emergency room?’ And the majority of guests that come in here say ‘Yes,’ which is really incredible,” Nicholson says. “That means they have gone with a less intense intervention and received the help that they needed at the time.”
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The Living Room is located inside the Ben Gordon Center at 12 Health Services Drive in DeKalb. It is open to residents of DeKalb County. Walk-in guests are welcome: No appointment is required. For more information and current hours of operation, please visit nm.org/dekalblivingroom or call 815.756.4875.
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The Ben Gordon Center Crisis Response Line is also available 24/7. The 24-hour hotline is 866.242.0111.

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