Sheppard Pratt seeks Prince George's site to expand behavioral health care

Prince George’s County’s shortage of nearby behavioral health care is now the opening for one of Maryland’s best-known mental health providers. Towson-based Sheppard Pratt is searching for a county site to expand services, using a state earmark that puts Prince George’s in line for a bigger share of care that residents have long had to find elsewhere.

The need is concrete. Prince George’s County opened the Dyer Care Center in Clinton on July 29, 2024, the region’s first 24/7 crisis stabilization facility, built to function like an emergency room for mental health crises. It can serve up to 16 guests at a time and is meant to relieve pressure on emergency rooms, hospitalizations and incarcerations. Even so, county officials and health planners have said the system still needs more places for residents to get crisis care, addiction treatment, mental health support and the navigation help that connects them with housing and other services.

Sheppard Pratt’s expansion would be its first major push into Prince George’s, a county it has not served as deeply as the Greater Baltimore region. Founded in 1853, the nonprofit says it is the largest private nonprofit provider of mental health, substance use, developmental disability, special education and social services in the country, and it has been ranked by U.S. News & World Report as a top psychiatric hospital for 30 straight years. The new county site would add to that statewide footprint.

State funding announced in February 2024 included at least $6.5 million for Sheppard Pratt to provide services in Howard, Prince George’s and Washington counties, with $2 million earmarked for Prince George’s. The money is intended to help the provider stand up local services, though the county site’s exact mix of beds, outpatient care or crisis programming has not been spelled out. What is clear is that the investment is aimed at bringing treatment closer to where people live, rather than sending them out of county when they need help.

That matters in a county where a 2022 RAND assessment pointed to changing demographics, inefficient use of the health care system and trouble navigating health and human services. Prince George’s Local Behavioral Health Authority describes its system as a “No Wrong Door” network, but the county still faces the challenge of turning that promise into enough actual seats, staff and treatment slots. The new Sheppard Pratt site would be part of a broader effort to close that gap for residents who now depend on Clinton’s Dyer center and the county’s referral network when a local option is not available.