If you talked to people in 2009 who lived in the Roaring Fork Valley, they would tell you that the area has had a high suicide rate for as long as they could remember. Some attributed this to the party lifestyle, others to cost of living, and others to the Ute curse that has been whispered about for decades.

In 2009, the Aspen Valley Medical Foundation made a valiant attempt to make a change. They commissioned the Colorado Depression Center to conduct a gap analysis on the mental health services in the area. nearly nine months and 600 pages later, the research team presented their findings. With a love for community and passion for mental health a group of five individual came together and Aspen Hope Center was born.

Pulling from the 50 recommendations outlined in the report, this group decided that first and foremost, this would be an agency where the service of excellence was crisis work. Secondly, it would be an agency that filled gaps to serve those in need. Hence, the design was the following four pillars of service. Pillar I - a 24-hour HopeLine. This line would be answered by experienced clinicians. Pillar II - a mobile crisis team. This team would meet individuals where they were in a time of crisis, no appointments, no insurance questions, or waiting lists. Pillar III - a stabilization program. This was designed to be an alternative to inpatient hospitalization where people could heal in their beautiful community. Pillar IV - a robust education and outreach program. The belief was that to reduce suicide and raise awareness education was key.

The agency took their first call on June 1, 2010. In the first six months, a large number of the calls were found to have come from law enforcement and local schools. Partnerships were formed and the first co-response protocols and collaborations began. Hope Center crisis clinicians started training with law enforcement and responding more frequently on scene as law enforcement began to understand the skills of a crisis clinician and requested their presence. Transports to the emergency departments began to decrease as individuals were evaluated in their homes. Fewer and fewer transports were being made to Grand Junction or Denver where the closest inpatient psychiatric hospitals are located, because people were entering in the the Intensive Stabilization Program and avoiding inpatient stays.

In the spring of 2011 a partnership began with the Roaring Fork School District and the school-based health center. Over the summer of 2011, school-based mental health programs were researched and little data could be found. Best practices were pulled, the school and culture taken into consideration, and in the fall of 2011 the first full-time school-based mental health clinician was placed in Basalt High School.

These two new partnerships essentially added two more pillars of crisis service and to this day, these are two programs that are most successful. Aspen Hope Center was born and embraced whole-heartedly by so many in the community and throughout the years, it has been the community that has kept the agency alive. Surviving on donations, contracts and a few local grants, Aspen Hope Center is the “Community’s Agency.”

In 2013 the Aspen Valley Medical Foundation closed its doors, but the Hope Center remained in place. Continually supported by the community, the services were requested more than ever and more contracts were solidified to keep the doors open. Training businesses and students in suicide awareness, providing short-term counseling, and adding more crisis resource partners, Aspen Hope Center soared.

In 2017, conversations began to spread outside the valley and Aspen Hope Center was asked to open its first satellite office in Eagle, Colorado. Supported mostly by the financial contributions from the first responder community, in September of 2018, the Eagle Hope Center opened and a mobile crisis team began to serve a new area. The school-based mental health program was also sought after and two clinicians were hired that fall, with four more positions supported by the 1A marijuana tax dollars in January 2019. The agency proved that it could successfully replicate its crisis and school-based model and a new community received high quality mental health services with no wait times and no medical bills to pay.

As the landscape of mental health continued to shift, in July of 2019, the Aspen Hope Center became eligible for state dollars to help fund the already existing mobile crisis team and assist with expansion. Taking on Eagle and Garfield County, mobile crisis work spread into new corners of the Western Slope. New partnerships with law enforcement and EMS, new hospitals and schools learning about the Hope Center’s work and more people being served with no barriers, no waiting lists and no emergency room visits.

Word continued to spread, and Aspen Hope Center provided consulting services to other communities or county stakeholders who are interested in forming locally owned and operated mobile crisis, co-response, or school-based mental health teams. With a passion for helping people in their darkest times, keeping individuals in their homes when possible and not admitting them to a hospital, and growing relationships with community partners, Aspen Hope Center consists of staff and board members who are committed to continuing this work for many years to come.

Aspen Hope Center Timeline