Eagle Valley Behavioral Health, a division of Vail Health, has been awarded full designation as a community mental health center, becoming only the 18th such center in Colorado and the first since 1989.

A community mental health center is a physical facility or a group of services under unified administration or affiliated with one another that provide services for the prevention and treatment of behavioral or mental health disorders in a particular community in which the facility or organization is located. The behavioral health services provided by these centers include: inpatient services, outpatient services, partial hospitalization, emergency services, consultative and educational services. Centers are eligible to receive funding through state and federal grants.

Eagle Valley Behavioral Health is now the second community mental health center in Eagle County alongside Mind Springs Health, which also serves Summit County.

Vail Health in April submitted applications to amend the plan that currently regulates land use of its Northstar Center property in Edwards. The proposed amendments would allow the development of a new building dedicated exclusively to behavioral health.

Subject to approval, Vail Health envisions an initial phase of construction of a new 50,000-square-foot behavioral health facility that would feature beds for short-term stays and treatment located west of its two existing buildings.