Dear Visitor,

Thank you for visiting our website. New Horizons Crisis Stabilization House (“New Horizons CSH”) serves adults with mental disorders (which may also include co-occurring substance use disorders) experiencing an existential crisis. Our therapeutic approach is predicated on bringing to the Milwaukee community cutting-edge thinking in research and clinical practice in behavioral healthcare. This approach was conceptualized and designed under the creative direction of staff from the County of Milwaukee Behavioral Health Division (“BHD”) as part of their vision to create an Integrated Behavioral Health System for Milwaukee county residents.

Life’s everyday challenges and stresses may not provoke an existential crisis. The latter type of crisis usually results from deep despair or a significant event, such as a major trauma or a major loss.  Causes of an existential crisis may include:

• Feeling guilty about something.
• Losing a loved one in death, or facing the reality of one’s own death.
• Divorce.
• Loss of employment and being unable to get re-employed.
• Being the victim of a crime.
• Financial losses with the risk of being homeless.
• Feeling socially isolated and lonely.

At Matt Talbot Recovery Services, Inc. our mission since 1966 has been to provide services with skill, compassion and dignity to persons experiencing mental and substance use disorders.  Specifically, New Horizons CSH provides psychotherapy, medication administration and monitoring, recreation and occupational therapy, coordination of physical health services, and an array of other therapies and related services to clients in crisis.

New Horizons CSH operates in partnership with and under the direction of BHD’s Psychiatric Crisis Services (“PCS”) program.  In collaboration with the four major local healthcare delivery systems, BHD currently has under active development the creation of:

(a) Under DHS 34, an Emergency Mental Health Services facility for persons experiencing an acute life-threatening disturbance in thought, behavior, mood or social relationship, which requires immediate intervention.  

(b) A 120-bed inpatient behavioral health hospital. 

Upon completion, New Horizons CSH will serve as a critical part of the continuum of care for psychiatric services in Milwaukee county by operating a crisis residential stabilization facility under DHS 34.22(4)(a); and by receiving post-discharge referrals from the foregoing (a) and (b) and from other sources in the community.  

Our facility is licensed as a “Community Based Residential Facility” (“CBRF”) under Wisconsin DHS 83.  The maximum number of clients that we can serve at any one time is 16. Our goal is to address and stabilize the urgent mental health condition in the shortest time possible. The average length of stay is 60 to 90 days and cannot exceed 180 days. The aim is to provide safety and security, avert hospitalization or re-hospitalization, and return the client to the condition that existed for them prior to occurrence of the crisis.

According to the National Association on Mental Illness (“NAMI“): “Just as diabetes is a disorder of the pancreas, a mental illness is a disorder of the brain that can make it difficult to cope with the ordinary demands of life.”  In recognition of the brain-based nature of mental disorders, at New Horizons CSH we employ an integrated medical model to treat the client, one that embraces both physical health and mental health.

Our promise is that we will provide to each of our clients – based on the client’s specific mental disorder(s) – care that is person-centered, culturally competent, trauma-informed and recovery-oriented.

Patricia M. Faulhaber, RN, MSN