HED designed the Center For Children’s Integrated Services for the Genesee Health System in Flint, Michigan.

In the wake of the Flint, MI, water crisis The Genesee Health System (GHS) needed a facility to unify its behavioral health services, improve access to behavioral health and primary care services to the underserved low- and moderate-income families of Flint, and create a central facility to develop medical innovation in the evaluation and treatment of lead poisoning.

Working closely with GHS, HED developed a design for a brand-new building that brings all of GHS’s children’s programs under one roof, including the Neurological Center for Excellence (NCE), Child and Family Services (CFS), and the Children’s Autism Center. The Center for Children’s Integrated Services helps reshape the physical and human landscape of Flint, ensuring that the NCE has a permanent physical home, continuing the important work of helping Flint children and their families get the access to behavioral health and primary care services they need.

The design brings together the three core children’s behavioral health programs (the NCE, CFS, and Autism Center) as well as a Community Outreach and a Federally Qualified Health Care (FQHC) center. HED co-located all these programs into one 60,000 SF building and utilized careful layouts to improve navigation and efficiency for patients, families, and medical staff while enhancing visibility and accessibility. This facility is vital to supporting the GHS in providing services to Genesee County residents (both children and adults) with serious mental illness, children with serious emotional disturbances and developmental disabilities, and adults and children with substance use disorders.

Design: HED
Photography: John D’Angelo