Parrot Creek Child and Family Services in Oregon City will add 20 new mental health treatment beds for children and teens starting later this year.
This is important given Oregon's severe shortage of hospital beds for children and teens who need mental health care and treatment for substance abuse disorders.
Twelve of the new slots will be for addiction treatment, representing a nearly 30% increase in such slots across the state. Her remaining 12 will serve Oregon foster children with significant behavioral and mental health needs who too often end up living in hotels or offices rather than treatment facilities.
Parrot Creek leaders secured $17 million of the $25 million needed to build a new youth treatment facility, with half coming from private donors and the other half from state and federal programs. .
Parrot Creek currently treats 16 juveniles in the juvenile justice system at any given time, providing residential mental health services as an alternative to jail time.
That's down from 20 slots previously, after the outdated original facility, built in 1968, was demolished last year. The 16 boys are being cared for in a temporary location.
The nonprofit is asking the state for an additional $8 million to expand inpatient treatment slots to 40 slots. As a result, the 40-bed facility will be completed by November 2024. Should the organization need to raise additional funds privately, the project will be split into two phases, with 28 permanent beds coming online in 2024 and a further 12 in 2025. said Simon Fulford, executive director of Parrot Creek.
There are currently 42 juvenile substance use disorder beds and 42 acute psychiatric inpatient beds across Oregon, according to the latest numbers from the Oregon Health Authority and Oregon Behavioral Health Council spokesman Adam Kane. There are 38 beds and 147 lower-level mental health treatment beds.
Parrot Creek While the state works to increase mental health beds, Gov. Tina Kotek announced Thursday that the state will provide an additional $25 million to expand youth behavioral health beds across the state. . This funding will focus on adding low-rise residential beds and substance use recovery beds for youth in the Portland metropolitan area, Douglas County, Lane County, and Morrow County.
Slightly more than half, $13.2 million, will go to Trillium Family Services to expand residential treatment capacity in Portland.
“These investments will help advance and complete projects that move the state forward in closing key program gaps exacerbated by fentanyl in recent years,” Ebony Clark, director of behavioral health for the Oregon Health Authority, said in a statement. Deaf,” he said. “We look forward to this partnership making a real difference in Oregon communities.”
The Parrot Creek project will include a new 22,410-square-foot residential treatment center, including three new buildings, on the nonprofit's 80-acre campus.
The Vancouver-based MJ Murdoch Charitable Trust awarded the group $500,000 to help realize the expansion. “Organizations like Parrot Creek provide important behavioral health services to children and youth, but as demand increases, services are stretched thin,” said Jill, vice president of grant management at Murdock.・Mr. Lemke says.
The nonprofit also received significant additional state funding to continue operations at the end of the 2023 legislative session, the Oregon Capital Chronicle reported. Fulford told the Chronicle that without that additional funding, his nonprofit would have been forced to consider discontinuing its current residential bed operations.
Home expansion projects provide patients with more privacy and peace of mind. Currently, adolescents must share a room with one other patient or two girlfriends. The new design allows each child and adolescent to have their own room.
Executive Director Fulford said his agency considered trauma-informed design and the unique needs of youth and their families when creating the blueprint for the project. Private rooms were one of the changes that resulted from those conversations.
“Our building is about 50 years old,” Fulford said.
This expansion will allow Parrot Creek to create three different youth health programs. Juvenile justice programs, which typically accommodate stays of seven to 18 months, will continue in the newly renovated area. And the agency plans to add an inpatient drug and alcohol recovery program and a foster care program. Fulford expects youth to stay in the recovery program for one to four months and in the foster care program for six to 18 months.
The foster care program targets young people who have experienced severe trauma and are struggling to be placed with families due to their behavior. Parrot Creek previously had a similar foster care program with six beds, but it closed during the pandemic.
“Residency drug and alcohol treatment for youth is something we have never done before,” Fulford said. “This was put into our plan in response to what has happened in Oregon over the past few years, including an increase in fentanyl use and overdoses among teens.”
Fulford said Oregon has seen an increase in youth addiction in recent years. He said he believes the pandemic, young people's involvement in social media and inadequate education about the harms of substances have all contributed to the increase. He said voters' approval of Measure 110, which decriminalizes the possession and use of hard drugs, sent a confusing message to young people.
“I'm a supporter of decriminalization in the general sense,” Fulford said. “But I think that's led kids to think that drugs are totally okay, even though they're more potent and even marijuana is laced with fentanyl. ”
There has been debate for decades about whether group care is the best option for adolescents. Mr Fulford said the best option for young people is to continue living with their biological families as they deal with difficulties, and the next best option is to place young people in foster care like family. . But when that doesn't work, thoughtful group care needs to be available, he said.
Nicole Hayden reports on homelessness and mental health for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Contact her at [email protected].
