By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — Town residents will be eligible for free urgent mental health assessments, starting in February, through a new agreement between the town and Silver Hill Hospital.

The agreement, signed last week by the Board of Selectwomen, will provide mental health assessments “for all residents, all ages, all stages and all income,” Elaine Daignault, director of the town’s Department of Human Services, told the board.

“It’s almost a concierge service for our community,” Daignault said.

“In Human Services, we receive calls all the time to find somewhere to go [for mental health services] that’s not the emergency room,” she said.  

For young people, especially, a hospital emergency room visit can be frightening, and there are not any urgent-care mental health facilities solely for young people near Westport. The closest is in New Haven, she said.

Daignault made it clear, however, that anyone who is “actively suicidal or having a true psychotic episode” still should be brought directly to a hospital emergency room.

The contract for the urgent assessment program with Silver Hill, located in New Canaan, is $40,000 annually for two years, according to Elaine Lavigne Flug, the assistant town attorney who reviewed the contract.

“The way that it works is we pay an annual fee and we have up to four referrals a month to anybody in town who has had trouble finding the mental health care they need or is in a situation where they’re looking for medication management,” Daignault explained.

For the assessment at Silver Hill, a patient would either stay in that facility for continued treatment, if needed, or would be referred to another agency that accepts their insurance coverage and meets that person’s needs, she said. 

Cost for treatment beyond the initial assessment would be the patient’s responsibility.

Silver Hill already has urgent care contracts with New Canaan and Weston, and Westport’s contract will be administered the same way, with patients being contacted for an assessment within 24 to 48 hours, Daignault told the selectwomen.

“It’s still much quicker than you can get into any kind of a psychiatrist for an assessment, which typically takes between one and six months,” she said. “So 24 to 48 hours is very good.”

First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker said the agreement with Silver Hill had been in the planning stages for months. “It’s a huge opportunity to address the mental health issues we have in this community and provide proper support to our residents,” she said.

The Silver Hill website provides details for the urgent assessment program, which the towns of New Canaan and Weston previously joined.

“Its goal is to connect those in urgent need of mental health treatment with a timely, psychiatric assessment and tailored referral for ongoing care. The program serves children, adolescents and adults,” according to the website.

Westport is expected to officially join the program in the first week of February, Daignault said.

The contract was approved unanimously by the selectwomen.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.