Idaho Youth Can Now Access Residential Mental Health Care

This article was originally published in the Idaho Capital Sun.

CALDWELL - Idaho families will soon have to send their children out of state to stay in mental health facilities.

Idaho Youth Ranch has opened a residential facility for seniors called the Residential Center for Healing and Resiliency, which has 64 beds, all with private rooms, and a charter school on a beautiful campus not far from downtown Caldwell.

The center will provide year-round 24-hour care, psychiatric care, therapy and education to more than 100 children between the ages of 11 and 17 each year, according to a news release.

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Most of the children served at the Youth Ranch facility will have Medicaid, Jeff Myers, vice president of marketing and communications, said in an interview at the facility Monday. But children with private insurance will also be served, and the facility under construction will offer scholarships to children whose insurance doesn't fully cover their stay, Myers said.

Adjacent to the Youth Ranch Equine Therapy Center on a 258-acre campus with trees, fields and a river, the children's facility hopes to keep Idaho children closer to their families, which leaders say will 'help children respond well to treatment.

"This is an Idaho problem that deserves an Idaho solution," Idaho Youth Ranch CEO Scott Curtis told the Idaho Capital Sun because it's therapeutically important. Sending young people to other countries is another trauma they have to face. … Keeping them closer to their families and caregivers will help make their therapeutic work more effective and sustainable.

There are already 50 children on the waiting list for treatment at the center, Myers said.

On any given day in Idaho, more than 100 children on Medicaid are sent out of state for psychiatric care, Myers said.

On August 15, the institution will begin accepting a limited number of patients. The public is invited to tour the facility on Thursday. To protect the privacy of children receiving treatment, the facility typically does not offer tours after patients begin treatment, Myers said.

Lodging at the Idaho Youth Ranch is designed to be comfortable

The institution was built keeping in mind the needs of the children who will grow up there. Each of the six classrooms has a bathroom. Corridors are very wide so that patients can maintain their personal space. Children who find it difficult to sit still in the classroom can also use rocking chairs. Carpeted floors, wood ceilings and large windows also create a sense of comfort, Myers says.

"It's not my home, but it looks familiar," he says.

Myers said all employees at the site, including technicians and cooks, will receive training to interact with students. He said the facility plans to use little or no handrails when staff must physically restrain patients.

"We know that when we have to treat a child, care for him is significantly reduced. So part of it is being aware of all the early signs when kids start to separate so you can jump in (and) catch them early," Myers said. "And part of it is having a mindset during practice that says what we are. we will do everything we can to avoid it.'

However, the facility is still built with the hallmarks of a mental institution, such as an iron fence that encloses the institution's yard and design features that prevent children from harming themselves.

The facility has four 16-room dorms , each named after a different Idaho mountain in the southwestern, central, northern, and eastern parts of the state: Ovihi, Southwood, Selkirk, and the Tetons. The hotel also has a dining hall, a medical and wellness building, and a recreation room.

The charter school, called Promise Academy, is chartered through the Middleton School District, Idaho Education News previously reported.

Eventually, the psychiatric treatment center could add a new 32-bed building to its campus, Myers said.

Idaho Youth Ranch raised $35 million to build the youth care center, mostly from private donors, but the Idaho Department of Health and Human Services awarded the nonprofit an $8 million grant.

In December 2022, Idaho awarded $15 million in grants to three organizations, the Northwest Idaho Ranch Children's Home in northern Idaho and the Jackson House in eastern Idaho, to build psychiatric treatment facilities.

Hospitals and hospices are part of the continuum of care

In 1952, Fr. Married couple James Crowe and Ruby Carey Crowe made their dream come true. They set up a youth farm in Idaho and bought 2,560 acres of land from Rupert's at $1 per acre a year, interest-free, according to a brochure for the facility.

The Crowes "believe the farming lifestyle can provide care that meets the needs of Idaho's youth," says Curtis.

The couple started babysitting at Rupert's original youth ranch in Idaho in the 1950s, Myers said. But Youth Ranch now has more than six decades of experience providing inpatient care to Idaho's children and families, he says.

"It was the most sustainable thing we've ever done," says Curtis.

Inpatient treatment is only one part of the spectrum of psychiatric care that Idahoans need, Curtis notes. Patients leave the Youth Ranch facility and seek care elsewhere, from specialists, primary care providers and other mental health professionals. Other parts of the system also need to be strengthened, he said.

The facility expects to hire 120 full-time employees for the campus, Curtis said. Caregivers interested in working at the center should visit youthrancho.org/careers.

The facility will slowly increase its childcare capacity, starting with eight children initially, Myers said, and increasing by eight children each month.

The Idaho Capital Sun is part of the State Newsroom, a network of grant-funded news agencies and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. The Idaho Capital Sun maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Christina Lords: info@idahocapitalsun.com with questions. Follow the Idaho Capital Sun on Facebook and Twitter.

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