Two Years, Two Programs, One Region Moving Forward

Northwest Florida has quietly built something remarkable — a coordinated safety net for people in their most vulnerable moments. Two milestone anniversaries reveal just how far the community has come.

Numbers rarely tell the whole story. These milestones offer a window into how Northwest Florida has made progress in mental health.

A place for crisis, not a waiting room for the ER

In April 2024, Lakeview Center opened two interconnected facilities on its Pensacola campus: a Central Receiving Facility (CRF) and a Crisis Stabilization Unit (CSU).

• Why? The timing was deliberate. Across Florida, individuals experiencing acute mental health crises were too often being routed to emergency departments ill-equipped to provide specialized behavioral care, or cycling through systems without receiving the right level of support.

The CRF changed that for Escambia and Santa Rosa. As the designated adult receiving facility for both counties, Lakeview Center became the first stop under Florida’s Baker Act and Marchman Act for adults in mental health or substance-related crises.

• Trained behavioral health professionals conduct timely screenings and determine the most appropriate next step—whether that means a hospital referral, stabilization on-site or connection to one of Lakeview Center’s more than 60 programs across the region.

“The opening of our Central Receiving Facility and Crisis Stabilization Unit was a pivotal moment for behavioral health care in our region. Reaching 7,500 screenings in just two years reflects both the growing need for crisis services and our team’s unwavering commitment to ensuring people receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time.”

— Shawn Salamida, President, Lakeview Center

• The CSU expanded the picture further, adding inpatient capacity and closing the gap between crisis intervention and longer-term stabilization. The result is a continuum that didn’t exist before: from the moment someone arrives in crisis to the point where they can begin a path toward recovery.

600 chances to say: there’s something more waiting for you

While Lakeview Center was building its crisis infrastructure, Escambia County EMS was quietly doing something equally significant in the streets, homes, and emergency calls of the county. The CORE (Coordinated Opioid Recovery Effort) program arrived in Escambia County in late 2022, accepting its first patient in February 2023. This spring, it reached its 600th.

• Background: Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the CORE initiative in August 2022. This program to break the overdose cycle was successfully piloted in Palm Beach County for nearly two years before expanding it to Brevard, Clay, Duval, Escambia, Gulf, Manatee, Marion, Pasco, and Volusia counties.

What’s Different: CORE is not a traditional EMS response. It pairs emergency medical care with addiction counseling, mental health support and long-term recovery services. Its power lies in the moment of intervention—meeting someone in the acute grip of opioid use disorder and offering not just medical stabilization, but a genuine pathway forward.

“We asked people in their darkest moments to take a chance on us, to believe that there was something more waiting for them beyond the pain. Over 600 patients said yes and placed their trust in us. In return, they’ve given us something far greater than we could have ever expected. They’ve given us purpose.”

— Joey Kerman, Supervisor, Escambia County EMS CORE Program

The CORE team works through community partnerships, including Lakeview Center, to connect patients with resources that extend well beyond any single emergency call. That linkage is intentional: the same individual who might come through Lakeview Center’s CRF for a crisis screening could already be known to the CORE team, or could be referred to CORE for ongoing opioid recovery support. The two systems are not parallel; they are interwoven.

What a safety net actually looks like

It’s worth stepping back to appreciate what Northwest Florida has built. Two years ago, neither the CRF nor the CSU existed. The CORE program was less than a year into its Escambia County operations. Law enforcement agencies were bearing a disproportionate burden in mental health and overdose calls. Emergency departments were absorbing patients who needed a different kind of care. And individuals in crisis had fewer places to turn.

Today, the picture is meaningfully different:

• Lakeview Center’s facilities have created a dedicated behavioral health front door for the region, easing strain on hospitals and providing law enforcement with a reliable place to bring individuals who need care rather than incarceration.
• The CORE program has demonstrated, 600 times over, that EMS can be a recovery on-ramp, not just an emergency responder.
• And both programs share a philosophical commitment that is becoming a regional standard: meet people where they are, without judgment, and connect them to what they actually need.

The work continues

The opioid crisis has not ended. Mental health needs have not diminished. These anniversaries underscore how much this region still needs the infrastructure it has so carefully built — and how essential it will be to sustain and grow it.