We are thrilled to share that Encompass Community Services has been awarded a $9.36M grant to support the development of our new, state-of-the-art Sí Se Puede Behavioral Health Center in Watsonville.
The award is part of the Department of Health Care Services’ (DHCS) Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program (BHCIP) Round 4: Children and Youth grants. As announced by Governor Gavin Newsom’s office on December 8, this round of grants includes $480.5M in awards to 54 projects aimed at improving California’s behavioral health infrastructure for children and youth.
BHCIP funding will allow Encompass to significantly expand Santa Cruz County’s substance-use disorder treatment capacity for transition-age youth (ages 18-25) and families. Specifically, the project will allow Encompass to add 7 new residential substance-use disorder treatment beds, as well 106 annual outpatient treatment slots for transition-age youth and families.
This treatment capacity expansion project is the cornerstone of Encompass’s larger effort to develop a state-of-the-art behavioral health campus in Watsonville that will deliver equitable treatment to nearly 1,300 community members per year.
“Encompass has long dreamed of building a bright, new behavioral health center in Watsonville to reduce barriers to treatment and make personalized, high-quality behavioral health care accessible to everyone in our community,” said Encompass CEO Monica Martinez. “This award provides the vital investment needed to break ground on the project next year and brings us significantly closer to realizing our full fundraising goal.”
Once built, Encompass’s new center will include a 30-bed residential treatment facility alongside an outpatient facility to provide a full spectrum of comprehensive care to support life-long recovery. Encompass is also partnering with nonprofit developer MidPen Housing to co-locate its new behavioral health campus with a 72-unit affordable housing development, in a joint effort to increasing access to high quality treatment and housing in South Santa Cruz County.
Encompass’s full Sí Se Puede Behavioral Health Center project is being funded through a variety of sources, including generous philanthropists, and public and private grants, including awards from the Central California Alliance for Health, Monterey Peninsula Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, The City of Watsonville and Community Foundation Santa Cruz County
While BHCIP funding provides the critical investment needed to break ground and begin construction next year, funding is still needed to fully outfit Encompass’s new center. Anyone interested in supporting the project or learning more can visit www.sisepuedecenter.org or contact our Director of Development and Community Relations [email protected].
More about the Sí Se Puede Behavioral Health Center in Watsonville
The new Sí Se Puede Behavioral Health Center expands on the successes of Encompass’s long-running treatment programs. Our current bilingual and mono-lingual Spanish Sí Se Puede residential substance use disorder program in Watsonville was developed and is led by Latinos with lived experience and has been serving the Santa Cruz Community for more than 30 years. The new campus will allow Encompass to greatly expand the residential program capacity to serve more individuals with substance use disorder every year. The center will also integrate and expand the capacity of our current South County-based outpatient treatment program onsite to serve more than 1,100 community members with a variety of services – from substance use disorder treatment to mental health therapy – and includes spaces for family therapy and a 30-seat classroom to provide ongoing educational programming for family and community members.