County Takes Next Step To Provide Local Psych Beds For Youths
PRESS RELEASE
PALO ALTO –The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to pursue inpatient psychiatric services for Santa Clara County children. At present, there are no inpatient psychiatric beds for children and adolescents available anywhere in the County. As a result, youngsters in need of such services are forced to locations far from home.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, who made the proposal, hopes that bringing these services to Santa Clara County will allow kids in crisis to have easier access to support from family, friends, and local mental health care professionals.
"I'm encouraged that my Board colleagues share my concern," said Simitian. "It's startling that a county of this size doesn’t have the facilities to meet the significant need for inpatient psychiatric care for kids. Kids and families are not well-served being sent out of the County."
Simitian's referral asks staff to look into options for bringing inpatient psychiatric beds into the County for children under the age of 18. County staff will have six months to report back on how the County might serve the hundreds of youth annually who are currently sent to Alameda County, Sacramento County, Solano County, Contra Costa County, and elsewhere for inpatient psychiatric treatment. Youth currently average a stay of six to seven days in these hospitals.
The referral notes that both uninsured youth and Medi-Cal beneficiaries, as well as commercially insured and private paying youth, are forced to seek treatment outside of the County.
"Inpatient psychiatric beds are a vital service in assisting youth in crisis and at risk of taking their lives," said Santa Clara County Behavioral Health Board member Vic Ojakian. "These beds do not currently exist in Santa Clara County, and very few are provided in Northern California. Increasing this service would be a significant action."
“There are three reasons I think this is important,” said Simitian. “First, it’s better therapeutically for kids to be close to their community, and their own local mental health providers, when they’re in crisis. Second, sending kids to far away locations places a major hardship on their families during what is already a difficult time. And third, I’m worried that having this treatment option so far away deters kids and families from seeking the help they need.”
"We know that these beds are an integral and essential part of the continuum of care. The next step is to figure out how to get the best possible help for these kids closer to home.”
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