Centerstone Names Brittany Pinnon-Becker as Director of Crisis System of Care

Centerstone, a national leader in behavioral health care, recently named Brittany Pinnon-Becker as the director of the crisis system of care.

“I have been working at Centerstone for more than 7 years, and have served in a crisis capacity my entire time here,” Pinnon-Becker said. “I am honored and excited for the opportunity to lead our Illinois crisis programs, especially at such a pivotal time for crisis services.”

Pinnon-Becker will oversee grant funding and compliance after Centerstone was awarded a crisis services grant from the Illinois Department of Human Services’ Division of Mental Health in the amount of $1,010,800 to establish “access to the traditional community-based mental health and substance use crisis stabilization and treatment services… including Crisis Intervention and Mobile Crisis Team Services.”

“The new grant will allow us to expand our current crisis services and begin creating a more robust crisis system of care for our community,” she said. “This expansion and evolution of crisis services is vital to the goal of ensuring anyone, anywhere and anytime can access needed crisis support.”

The services funded by this grant will include addressing the needs of “justice-involved individuals experiencing mental health issues” and will “require regular communication between the crisis services that are developed and local hospitals, police/fire, 911, and, when ready, the 988 Regional Crisis Call Hubs.”

9-8-8 is the three-digital dialing number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, which connects callers to life-saving suicide prevention and mental health crisis services. All telephone service providers are to direct 988 calls to the existing National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by July 16, 2022.

Pinnon-Becker will oversee and lead the mobile crisis response teams and crisis system of care statewide. Mobile Crisis Team Services are defined by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services as “24/7/365 rapid response to assess an individual in a crisis situation, offering community-based interventions and stabilization where the individual is located (for example at home, work, school or anywhere else in the community).”

Finally, Pinnon-Becker will help lead Centerstone’s participation in Zero Suicide Initiative.

The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention defines Zero Suicide as “a commitment to suicide prevention in health and behavioral health care systems, and also a specific set of tools and strategies.” Its proposition is that suicide deaths among those under care are preventable, and that zero suicides should be the goal of health systems. Zero Suicide brings a systematic approach to suicide prevention while closing gaps in patient care.

Pinnon-Becker, of Alton, has a bachelor’s of science in psychology from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and a master’s of art in professional counseling from McKendree University. She is a licensed clinical professional counselor.