Contact: Danielle Lamson
Communications Manager
610 Campus Drive
Abingdon, VA 24210
276.619.5315
dlamson@highlandscsb.org
www.highlandscsb.org
April 5, 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ABINGDON, VA (April 5, 2016) – Highlands Community Services has broken ground on their new Children’s Campus located at 391 Baugh Lane, Abingdon, VA.
The project represents the culmination of years of planning to create a facility where the children of Washington County and Bristol, VA can come to receive critically needed behavioral health services. In the last nine years, the number of children provided behavioral healthcare by HCS has risen at an alarming rate, nearly tripling from 645 to just under 1,900 children. This means that a large percentage of children in our region are desperately in need of the specialized professional care provided by HCS every day in one of our facilities or in one of the 23 local schools that we serve.
HCS Executive Director Jeff Fox explains, “Highlands Community Services believes that addressing behavioral health issues during childhood and adolescence can potentially prevent those issues from escalating further into adulthood. We serve children and adolescents who are seriously emotionally disturbed, addicted to substances, and in the midst of emotional crisis. In addition, we work with children who have developmental and intellectual disability related challenges. We believe that in order for a community to be truly healthy, its citizens – young and old – must experience a sense of security, belonging, well-being, and hope. We look forward to seeing all of these elements come together in a comprehensive, consolidated space where children feel valued, hopeful, and safe.”
The HCS Children’s Campus will provide the community with a new facility that will:
- centralize most children’s programs
- decrease wait times for behavioral health services
- increase efficiencies of our services
- provide a state-of-the-art, therapeutic, recovery-centered space
- allow for improved collaborative services with community partners
- allow continued assistance to our school systems by expanding school-based services
- save taxpayer dollars by keeping services in the community
- serve more children and families in our region
The building will include 25,450 square feet of program and office space plus a 7,296 square foot gymnasium for a total of 32,746 square feet and is expected to be completed in January of 2017.
Highlands Community Services is a multi-faceted Virginia Community Service Board providing mental health, substance abuse, and intellectual disability services to the residents of Bristol and Washington County, VA. Serving thousands each year, the goal is to provide a full continuum of care and to increase access to innovative mental health services…improving lives and discovering possibilities along the way. To learn more call 276.525.1550 or log onto www.highlandscsb.org.
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