Ohana House
Ground was broken November 23 for Ohana House, which will be home to many of the programs and services of our innovative mental and behavioral health program for children and adolescents. While the anticipated opening of the unique site is early 2023, Ohana is already serving families in our community.
Nearly 500 children and young people have been evaluated and/or are in treatment with Ohana, with more than 6,200 patient visits since 2019. Dr. Susan Swick, physician in chief of Ohana, has been building a team that now includes three child psychiatrists, eight therapists, three family care managers, a psychiatric nurse practitioner, medical director, clinical director, and director of operations.
Services now provided include:
- Family care management, connecting with parents seeking care to refer to appropriate resources in the community or guide into Ohana services when appropriate. A clinician from this team calls parents within a business day of their reaching out to Ohana seeking help
- Diagnostic evaluations with an Ohana child psychiatrist or nurse practitioner
- Evidence-based individual therapy for the most common childhood psychiatric problems (anxiety disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder in early childhood, depression and mood dysregulation in adolescence) and for select problems that are more rare
- Evidence-based group therapy for these same disorders
- Individual and group programs for parents to help them build skills to help their children who are mastering problems of anxiety, mood, or self-regulation
Architectural renderings from NBBJ
Plans for 2021 include:
- Pilot a family support team to help stabilize youth who come to Community Hospital’s Emergency department in crisis
- Launch a parent program for parents of young children with disruptive, dysregulated, and oppositional behaviors
- Create full-day and afterschool programs for adolescents with more severe mood disorders
Ohana is made possible by an unprecedented gift of $105.8 million from Bertie Bialek Elliott to Montage Health Foundation in 2018.
“This is an unmet need,” Elliott said in making the gift. “Young people need help at times. It’s not an illness that kids want to get. But because it shows up in behavior, there is more judgment from others. If you have a big enough family, it’s hard to say you’ve never been touched by a young person who needs help.
“I had the sense that this project would take a lot of money to get it going. It would take a chunk of money or it might not ever get done. Since I had money to give, I thought it was worthwhile. If you can help young people early, rather than waiting to rescue them later, how great is that?”
For assistance from Ohana, call (831) OHANA01.
Find more information about Ohana at chomp.org/Ohana.
