Our Programs
Our Programs
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<div class='icon-title'><i class="fas fa-phone-alt"></i>24-Hour Hopeline</div>
The Aspen Hope Center provides a 24-hour confidential line to ensure that anyone who calls for help reaches an on-call clinician day or night, seven days per week.
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<div class='icon-title'><i class="fas fa-info"></i>Information & Referral</div>
When a client calls for a referral, the Hope Center clinician makes it a priority to connect them with the appropriate practitioner or agency from Aspen to Parachute.
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<div class='icon-title'><i class="fas fa-comments"></i>Counseling</div>
The Hope Center offers short-term, solution-focused therapy provided by licensed therapists for various types of life struggles.
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<div class='icon-title'> <i class="fas fa-heartbeat"></i> Intensive Stabilization Program</div>
The Aspen Hope Center created the Intensive Stabilization Program as an alternative to inpatient psychiatric hospitalization. This program helps people emerge and heal from a crisis with the support of the crisis team, local professionals, and daily therapy; all without leaving the valley and spending days in a locked facility.
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<div class='icon-title'> <i class="fas fa-walking"></i> Mobile Crisis / Co-response Program </div>
Each person who calls in crisis requires an individualized approach to handle their particular situation.
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<div class='icon-title'> <i class="fas fa-book-open"></i>School-based Mental Heath Program</div>
The Hope Center and RE-1 school district partner to provide all crisis services and prevention education programs to the schools in the district.
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<div class='icon-title'> <i class="fas fa-users"></i>Community Education</div>
The Aspen Hope Center believes that to raise awareness and reduce the stigma of mental illness, education is key.
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<div class='icon-title'> <i class="fas fa-chalkboard-teacher"></i> Consulting Services </div>
The deep collaborations and partnerships the Hope Center have with local agencies, businesses and other non-profits is what adds to the care and healing that is able to be provided.
The Aspen Hope Center provides a 24-hour confidential line to ensure that anyone who calls for help reaches an on-call clinician day or night, seven days per week. Having a local voice on the other end of the phone makes such a difference to those who call, aand the immediate response ensures the person in need receives the appropriate help in a timely manner. The Hope Center also partners with Colorado Crisis Services (CCS) as they have bilingual staff 24/7 and a TEXT-to-TALK line. You can reach CCS 24/hr hotline at 1-844-493-8255 or Text “TALK” to 38255.
Information & Referral
Aspen Hope Center (AHC) receives, on average, 24% of its calls from individuals seeking mental health information and/or a referral to a local mental health provider or valley resource. The Hope Center is like the center hub of a wheel; when you enter into the Aspen Hope Center you enter into the vast array of resources in the valley. The work conducted by AHC would not be as beneficial and have as long-lasting effects without the specialized services of other nonprofits, businesses, individuals and agencies in the area all working together to help someone in need. When an individual calls for a referral, the Hope Center team makes it a priority to connect them with appropriate practitioner or agency from Aspen to Parachute, or in the town or county from which they may be calling.
AHC Substance Use Disorder Disclosure
AHC and its clinicians, including its licensed addiction counselors (LACs), are only employed by AHC to provide crisis and other mental health services, and do not provide, and do not hold themselves as providing diagnosis or treatment for substance use disorders. AHC is not publicly identified as a place where only substance use disorder diagnosis, treatment or referral for treatment are provided; nor are AHC’s clinicians publicly identified as only providing substance use disorder diagnosis, treatment or referral for treatment nor are any of AHC’s clinicians’ primary function at AHC the provision of substance use disorder diagnosis, treatment or referral for treatment. On occasion, in cases where an AHC clinician, in the course of providing crisis or other mental health services, determines that an individual being served for a crisis or other mental health condition may have a co-occuring substance use disorder, the AHC clinician may (i) recommend that the individual follow up with a substance use disorder treatment program, (ii) provide the individual with information about substance use disorder treatment programs that the individual can elect to follow up with on their own, or (iii) refer the individual to a substance use disorder treatment program and arrange for the coordination of follow-up care with the substance use disorder treatment program. However, in such circumstances, it is not possible to infer that an individual referred by AHC or an AHC clinician (including LACs) has or likely has a substance use disorder or is receiving treatment or referral for a substance use disorder.
Therapy
The Hope Center offers short-term, solution-focused therapy provided by licensed therapists for various types of life struggles. Counselors also participate in the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) through Triad, providing three to five sessions for qualified employees. Several local businesses also contract with Aspen Hope Center for private EAPs to support their staff. The Hope Center also offers daily intensive therapy through the Intensive Stabilization Program, which is an alternative to inpatient psychiatric hospitalization.
See below to learn more about our therapists; and click here or call 970-924-0703 to schedule an appointment.
You can also refer to the HeadQuarters website for a community-wide provider directory.
Mobile Crisis / Co-response Program
The Aspen Hope Center has been conducting mobile crisis and co-response work since 2010 in the Roaring Fork Valley. When an individual calls the HopeLine, a clinician asks specific questions to quickly determine if the caller needs to be seen in person. If so, an in-person evaluation is arranged within moments. Community members will either have a Hope Center clinician come to their home or they are invited into the office to be seen. All individuals who require an assessment are seen same day, usually within one hour.
The Aspen Hope Center also formed a co-response program in the fall of 2010. The crisis clinicians partner with local law enforcement departments, EMS agencies, and the 911 dispatch center to respond on scene to any person calling 911 for mental health help. The goal is to alleviate the need for transport to a local emergency room for a mental health crisis evaluation, and to return first responders to duty as quickly as possible.
Intensive Stabilization Program
The Aspen Hope Center created the Intensive Stabilization Program as an alternative to inpatient psychiatric hospitalization. This program helps people emerge and heal from a crisis with the support of the crisis team, local professionals, and daily therapy; all without leaving the valley and spending days in a locked facility.
Intensive Stabilization Program
Approximately 76% of the individuals who call the Aspen Hope Center are in a state of crisis. Each person who calls in crisis requires an individualized approach to handle with their particular situation. The Hope Center clinicians conduct an initial clinical assessment, usually in someone’s home or office, sometimes at local agencies, at a physician’s office, school, or in the Hope Center office. After evaluation, if an individual is deemed high-risk and safety is in jeopardy, they may be entered into the Intensive Stabilization Program. This program is an alternative to inpatient hospitalization, where the client may remain in their home with loved ones and friends to support them while receiving specialized, wraparound services from local practitioners, peers and agencies. During the Program, the client is seen daily by several professionals until stabilized and able to move into regular weekly therapy. The individuals in this program are in acute crisis and deemed to be the highest risk for suicide. Despite this, in nearly eleven years, not one person in this program has been lost to suicide.
School-based Mental Health Program
Aspen Hope Center has partnered with the RE 1 School District and Aspen School District to help better serve students with mental health support. With 17 mental health clinicians in schools spanning Aspen to Glenwood Springs, these professionals are assigned to one school and work in tandem with the school counselors, staff and administration to remove all barriers to receiving counseling and intervention services. Students can seek help at their school, with no charge and without mounds of paperwork or lengthy intake processes.
The school-based clinicians are tasked with providing individual and group counseling, socio-emotional check-ins and a small amount of staff development. These clinicians work in the prevention realm of crisis, seeing youth identified as in need or at risk in the hopes of preventing a crisis from occurring.
If you have questions about programming, please email michelle@aspenhopecenter.org. To inquire about open positions within our school program, please email HR@aspenhopecenter.org.
Community Education
The Aspen Hope Center believes that to raise awareness and reduce the stigma of mental illness, education is key. The Hope Center offers several mental health classes to individuals of all ages and on a variety of mental health topics.
We Can Talk, a QPR Suicide Awareness Program
A class built for the community and designed to educate individuals on what to look for and how to approach someone who may be potentially suicidal. It teaches powerful, yet simple techniques. Local, state, and national statistics on suicide are presented and basic warning signs are discussed on how to detect if someone may be thinking about suicide. The attendees will gain knowledge on basic conversation tips, and be able to feel empowered to not own the persons crisis, but where to take people in need to get professional help. Participants learn what is essential to save a life!
Dealing with Difficult Behaviors
A class designed to help participants learn behaviors common to various disorders, and practical ways to deal with psychiatric patients or uncooperative individuals, ways to make an environment safe, detect warning signs for those in distress, understand how professional reactions can impact a patient, gain an understanding of how YOU need care and utilize a team. This class is typically arranged for agencies who would like their staff trained in de-escalation techniques. Classes have been taught at local hospitals and local businesses.
Psychiatric Emergency Training
A training geared toward law enforcement and EMS. This class teaches the basics of behavioral presentations common in psychiatric disorders. The similarities and differences between how a person can present with a medical conditions and a psychiatric condition. First responders are taught how to best approach and asses someone for suicide, they are educated on a clinicians requirement for scene safety, and interagency collaboration and mutual aid is also discussed.
Consulting Services
The Aspen Hope Center has been successful in finding a way to hire, train, and retain mobile crisis clinicians that respond 24-hours a day, year-round. These clinicians are taught to work independently as well as part of a co-response team with law enforcement. As 988 rolls out across the country with the aim of separating medical and legal emergencies from mental or behavioral health emergencies, more and more communities are looking to have mobile crisis teams or co-response services.
Not only has the Hope Center operated a mobile crisis and co-response team since 2010, it has also successfully replicated this service in other communities in ways that meet the individual community needs. From expanding out and forming a satellite office in a new county, to helping a community establish its own 501c3 and support a team locally the Hope Center has been successful. From consulting with adjacent county stakeholders and assisting a hospital as they stand up a mobile crisis team, the Aspen Hope Center is dedicated to helping other professionals so they can serve their community.
The key is genuine collaboration and trusted partnership. When contracted, the local law enforcement, EMS, and 911 dispatch staff are engaged in a partnership where mutual respect and trust is encouraged to grow. Co-training, shadowing, and ride alongs, are common practice to help reach the partnership goal. The Hope Center staff also include local businesses, entities, and professionals in a community who are relied upon to help follow through with longer term care after a crisis. The consultation includes how to create a safety net or web in a community to care for individuals in their homes and natural environments so transport to an emergency room is needed less often and inpatient psychiatric care is lessened.
Any community with leaders and stakeholders who hold the following traits and passions - can succeed!
A common passion for serving individuals during a time of mental health crisis.
A desire to lessen transports to local emergency rooms or jails.
A shared vision on which entity in a community is equipped, knowledgeable, stable and dedicated to operating a crisis team.
A dedication to sustainability and longevity
Here are what some stakeholders have said regarding Michelle and the Aspen Hope Center’s model.
“The introduction of the Eagle Valley Hope Center Co-Response to behavioral health crisis has been a game changer for law enforcement in Eagle County. We were in a mind funk, of there is “nothing we can do about this ongoing problem” until Michelle and the Hope Center Model arrived. It helped us change our thinking and our approach. Not to be cliché, but the Hope Center brought hope to law enforcement professionalism who at that time could not see light at the end of the tunnel. We now partner with the clinicians and community paramedics and offer realistic solutions to those most in need”
Greg Daly, MSCr, Chief of Police, Avon, CO
“As the Sheriff of Garfield County, I have been involved in many conversations about the increasing mental health crisis, but I never thought a co-responder program was viable. I was wrong! Michelle and her team at Aspen Hope Center have been providing the Sheriff’s Office and our community a great alternative to a law enforcement response to cases that shouldn’t require law enforcement! They are quick to respond, follow up and have taught us so much about crisis intervention. We still have a long way to go to with mental health issues, but this program has been the fuel to get us started”
Lou Vallario, Garfield County Colorado Sheriff
Consulting Project News
