Riverhead mental health center opens, offers services to inmates and LI residents

A new mental health center opened in Riverhead Thursday aimed at addressing the needs of local residents and jail inmates whose anxiety, depression and other emotional issues have been exacerbated during the pandemic.

The opening of RISE Life Services Elevations Clinic Treatment Program, a new 6,000-square-foot facility on East Main Road, was celebrated with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by law enforcement, local officials and mental health care advocates.

The building — operated by RISE Life Services, a Riverhead nonprofit providing aid to developmentally disabled individuals — will feature a child care center and seven therapy rooms and will offer mental health services to East End residents, jail inmates and other Long Islanders.

Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon Jr. said national statistics show that 60% of the state's inmates have been diagnosed with mental health issues. Those numbers, he said, point out why resources are needed to help inmates regain mental health and potentially prevent crime and lower recidivism rates among them.

"Now, more than ever, we need to address this important topic of mental health and discuss it and really help treat the people dealing with these issues, especially since the pandemic with the anxiety and depression that they are enduring," Toulon said.

Charles Evdos, executive director of RISE Life Services, said he and Toulon started speaking in late 2020 about how to tackle mental health needs in Suffolk County. With COVID-19 straining mental health services — particularly on the East End where distance from mental health facilities makes it challenging for residents to access such programs — an outpatient mental health clinic such as the Riverhead facility is critical, said Evdos.

"Our goal is to help the community, and to do the best we can to help the community," Evdos said.

The facility will work with the Suffolk County Sherriff’s Office — which will refer patients there — with the goal of eventually treating 1,000 individuals monthly through the Riverhead site, Evdos told Newsday. Another planned site in Huntington is anticipated to treat another 1,000 individuals monthly, according to Evdos.

Tracy Anderson, an operations director at RISE who will be running the Riverhead facility, said RISE staff will offer services that include assessment, symptom and medication management, counseling, and group therapy.

Challenges that staff will help patients meet include, but are not limited to, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, ADHD, bipolar and personality disorders. RISE programs will provide services to adults and children ages 3 and up via individual, couple, family, group and telehealth services in over 50 languages and dialects, according to Anderson.

Suffolk County Legis. Al Krupski (D-Cutchogue) said Thursday the new center "is serving a great need" on the East End.

"There was a great need 10 years ago," Krupski said, "and it wasn’t being addressed, so the community appreciates it."