Youth Villages Oregon will expand services to Central Oregon this week to help children with emotional and behavioral problems and their families in Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson counties.
Youth Villages will offer its Intercept intensive in-home services in the area and launch a new program to help children who are seen in hospital emergency rooms for mental health-related issues. To provide the services, Youth Villages Oregon has a new office in Redmond and will employ a supervisor and eight intensive in-home and ER specialists.
“We are proud to be working with others in Central Oregon to fill gaps in services for children with very serious mental, emotional and behavioral health needs and their families,” said Rebecca Hancock, executive director of Youth Villages Oregon.
Through the program, family intervention specialists with low caseloads meet an average of three times each week in the family’s home at the family’s convenience. Specialists are on call 24/7 to help in case of family emergencies and work in the home, community, neighborhood and school.
“Our Intercept intensive in-home program provides help to the entire family, not just the child,” Hancock said. “It helps strengthen families so they can help their children.”
The organization’s ER diversion program will help children who are seen for mental health issues in area hospitals receive the most effective help and support.
“Our specialists assess and evaluate children under the age of 18 who come to a hospital emergency room with primary mental health issues in Bend, Redmond, Prineville and Madras,” Hancock said. “The Youth Villages specialists will strive to ensure that the child receives the most effective help in the least restrictive setting and can return home quickly and successfully.”
The Youth Villages ER specialists may go home with the family from the hospital to help ensure the safety of the child in the home. Youth Villages also supports the child and family for up to two weeks after hospital discharge to help the family receive effective services in the home and community.
Youth Villages Oregon is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping children with emotional and behavioral problems and their families. Its history stretches from 1859, and includes The Christie School and ChristieCare. Providing intensive in-home, residential, transitional and ER diversion services to children and youth, Youth Villages Oregon is committed to enhancing children’s services by providing the strongest research-based, cost-effective solutions for the state’s most vulnerable children and families.
Youth Villages consistently produces lasting success for children using its Evidentiary Family Restoration approach, which involves intensive work with the child and family, a focus on measuring outcomes, keeping children in the community whenever safely possible, and providing accountability to families and funders. Youth Villages Oregon has a long-term success rate of 80 percent.
One of the nation’s first and largest providers of intensive in-home services, Youth Villages this year will help more than 23,000 children and families from 20 states and Washington, D.C. The organization has been recognized by Harvard Business School and U.S. News & World Report, and was identified by The White House as one of the nation’s most promising results-oriented nonprofit organizations. For more information, visit www.youthvillages.org.