Grand Prairie Services (GPS) is a not-for-profit behavioral healthcare provider with over 64 years of experience providing outpatient counseling and mental health services. The organization began in 1950 as a counseling agency in Park Forest, and then merged in 1956 with social service groups representing Park Forest, Chicago Heights, Homewood and Harvey. Over the past years and continuing today, the organization has responded to its primary service area by offering a comprehensive continuum of professional behavioral healthcare services to children, adolescents, adults and seniors living in the thirty-two municipalities of Bloom, Bremen, Rich and Thornton townships. These vital services are provided by a staff of 180 FTE’s.

Outpatient Psychiatric services are provided at our primary outpatient clinical sites located in Flossmoor, Chicago Heights, South Holland, East Hazel Crest and Harvey, Illinois. All of our clinical locations are Medicaid and Medicare certified. Grand Prairie Services has extensive Community Support services to manage all levels of mental illness and substance abuse. We provide intensive community support to those individuals who require higher levels of care, as well as less intensive for those who are successfully learning to manage their illness.

GPS launched its residential services programs more than twenty years ago and continuing today, we provide multiple levels of residential services to ensure that persons at risk of homelessness due to psychiatric illness can achieve even higher levels of self-sufficiency through training, and support services. Our residential services include 24-hour supervised, supported, and permanent supportive housing options as well as Shelter Plus Care and HUD residences. Our residential facilities include a variety of environments to appropriately meet the individual needs of our residents which include single family homes, shared or individual apartment style living and group homes. Additionally, GPS is a partner in The Sanctuary, a transitional housing environment for women with children. GPS also participates in two other federally funded collaborative partnerships with housing as the focus: The Wellness Initiative Network (WIN) and the Wellness Initiative through Supportive Housing (WISH) project.

24-hour services are provided through our Regional Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center. The services offered through the Urgent Care Center are provided by a multi-disciplinary team of behavioral health professionals and include: a 10 bed crisis residential program, crisis counseling, assessment and triage, inpatient step down and stabilization insuring continuity of care. When appropriate, this cost effective service offers an excellent alternative to costly inpatient psychiatric hospitalization. When inpatient hospitalization is necessary, the Regional Behavioral Urgent Care Center is also a valuable tool to help control inpatient length of stay. When the Center is utilized in a step down model of care, a patient can be discharged from the hospital to a less intensive but necessary level of care for further stabilization before returning to their home environment. The services provided at this center have evolved from the original model of care which began in 1992 as a local crisis stabilization unit and have expanded to its current status as a Regional Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center serving multiple counties including southern Cook, Will Grundy and Kankakee.

Through this center GPS also provides Specialized Crisis Debriefing services to Fire Departments, Police Departments and other first responders, Schools, Businesses and other organizations to deal with emotional responses to traumatic events. In 2005, GPS was called upon by the Illinois Department of Human Services, Division of Mental Health to provide crisis counseling services to refugees of Hurricane Katrina who were relocated to the south suburban Chicago area following the disaster in New Orleans. In February 2008, GPS was called to assist the Tinley Park Police Department by providing crisis counseling services to the victim’s families of the mass murder and armed robbery from the Lane Bryant killings which occurred in Tinley Park. More recently GPS has responded to several incidents of armed bank robberies to provide counseling services to the employees and customers of the banks in the aftermath of the crimes.

GPS provides specialized services including spiritual and bereavement counseling, and PsychoSocial Rehabilitation which includes Pre-vocational training, Intensive Stabilization and Skill Building. The value of these services to consumers can be seen in their development of a consumer run snack shop, The Snackery, and the Upward Center, a consumer run social club which allows individuals to participate in social events and planned activities in a safe, relaxed community social setting

GPS provides developmental training services for developmentally disabled adults. Our training services are provided in Tinley Park, Illinois for community residents and residents of the Elizabeth Ludeman Developmental Center operated by the State of Illinois.

Consideration is given to the economic situation of every individual therefore GPS offers a sliding fee scale based on family income, to assist those in need and to ensure that services are affordable and accessible to everyone.

GPS has expanded the services available to the community to include Employee Assistance Plan participation and the addition of approximately 35 commercial managed care contracts for behavioral healthcare services.