BUCKLAND — The Mary Lyon Foundation plans to build or renovate a resource center in western Franklin County within the next five years to help meet residents’ needs.

“We’re looking to build a center that would be an intergenerational center where it would have a myriad of resources for the West County community,” said Mary Lyon Foundation Executive Director Kristen Tillona-Baker. “Things like health care, behavioral health, senior center, all of those things. We put a grant into the state for preliminary planning, and if that is approved, then we start working.”

The idea was discussed during a June 14 meeting between the Community Health Improvement Plan, a project of the Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG), in partnership with the Mary Lyon Foundation. Representatives of organizations and departments from across Franklin County, including the Shelburne Police Department, LifePath and the Riverside Trauma Center, gathered to discuss ways to meet the needs of residents.

The project is led by the Mary Lyon Foundation in partnership with the Senior Center at 7 Main St. in Shelburne Falls, the Mohawk Trail Regional School District and the Community Health Center of Franklin County, with hopes of opening the new center somewhere in Shelburne or Buckland, Tillona-Baker said.

“The idea is that while we have all of these wonderful services in Franklin County, the folks in West County have a lot of barriers to get to Greenfield for services,” Tillona-Baker said. “If we can get these tributaries and everything to come to one place, it’s like one-stop shopping.”

Shelburne Police Officer Tucker Jenkins and Tamara Sloan, a crisis counselor and EMT, discussed other measures to help people in crisis. Suggestions included ways to reinforce communication between departments and help offer resources to people in a safe way, both during and after the moment of crisis.

“I think there is a lot more crisis going on than people are aware of,” Sloan noted.

Tiarra Fisher, operations coordinator for CONNECT (Community Opportunity, Network, Navigation, Exploration, and Connection), a 24/7 rapid response team that responds to opioid overdoses and those at high risk of overdose throughout Franklin County and the North Quabbin region, discussed plans to pilot a van outreach service that would help prevent opioid use and help people who are battling opioid addiction. The van outreach service would start in Ashfield, Charlemont, Deerfield, Erving, Orange and Wendell, without a planned start date at the moment.

Like Tillona-Baker, Fisher mentioned the difficulties people have in the wake of a lack of transportation options in western Franklin County.

“There are a lot of awesome resources in Greenfield that are really hard to get to for people who don’t live in Greenfield or don’t have access to public transportation,” Fisher said.

Attendees also discussed holding an Oct. 30 health fair at Mohawk Trail Regional School.

“In the interim while this is happening,” Tillona-Baker said, regarding what needs to be done between now and the creation of a resource center, “we just want to help our folks in western Franklin County get to the services they need.”