WILLIAMSVILLE, N.Y. — BryLin Behavioral Health System announced Tuesday that it is closing its Behavioral Health Center in Williamsville.
The closure includes outpatient mental health programs for children, adolescents and adults, as well as their outpatient addiction clinic.
BryLin's Behavioral Health Center first opened in 2013 with outpatient mental health programs for adults, before adding their outpatient addiction treatment clinic in 2015. In 2020, BryLin opened their first outpatient child and adolescent mental programs at that location.
“It was not an easy decision to make,” said President and CEO Eric Pleskow in a release.
BryLin officials say they notified staff that the health center will close once their clients have been linked to other community resources.
“We are notifying our care recipients and encouraging them to attend all appointments as scheduled. We are working to facilitate a warm handoff to other community providers as soon as possible,” Pleskow said.
Thirty-five employees will be affected by the closure. BryLin says they are working to find those employees other jobs within BryLin or with other organizations.
Pleskow says they could not keep up with other non-profit clinics, which receive funding. BryLin is the only private provider of short-term psychiatric hospitalization for children, adolescents and adults.
Pleskow said, “We had to make this very difficult decision because we simply cannot keep up, on an outpatient basis, with the funding that other local nonprofit outpatient clinics receive because of our for-profit status.”
BryLin says they will concentrate their efforts towards inpatient mental health treatment programs at BryLin Hospital on Delaware Avenue in Buffalo.
“We made a difficult decision,” said Pleskow. “We are now going to refocus on what we do best, which is providing quality inpatient behavioral health care to the Western New York Community for 67 years.”
