Seeking ways to expand and improve its services for mental health patients in Oakland County, Common Ground looked in a surprising direction — inward.

It had offered a number of programs, including a crisis hotline, the mobile Crisis Intervention Recovery Team, a crisis residential program, a runaway and homeless youth shelter in Royal Oak, a transitional living program for homeless ages 16-23 and other services, such as its victims of crime counseling and advocacy program.

But those programs had been operating in silos and rarely, if ever, were offered to the mental health clients it had been assessing for psychiatric hospitalization under a contract with Oakland County Community Mental Health Authority.

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