Illinois County Turns Portion Of Nursing Home Into Behavioral Health Center  

Central Illinois’ Randolph County recently converted an unused section of a county-owned nursing home into a behavioral health center. The center is intended to increase local capacity to meet demand for behavioral health support.  

County Commissioner Ralph Kiehna said the nursing home, the Randolph County Care Center, had low occupancy rates. In addition, the region had seen increasing substance use and crime rates after COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of a local coal plant in 2019. More than half of county arrests were drug related and the nearest behavioral health center was more than an hour’s drive . . .