The creative ways hospitals are promoting behavioral health
Detroit Medical Center looks at mental illness like any other health issue and treats it upstream, and Freeman Health System offers traumatized youth a truly comprehensive behavioral health experience.
Breaking the cycle of violence by treating its causes
To address Detroit’s high recurrent violent injury rates, Detroit Medical Center devised an intervention program that addresses their upstream behavioral factors. Dubbed Detroit Life is Valuable Everyday, or DLIVE, the program helps patients ages 14 to 30 who are survivors of intentional community violence. Violence intervention specialists use the “captive, contemplative moment” after patients recover from life threatening injuries to introduce them to the program at the bedside and offer trauma-informed crisis intervention. Once in the program, the patients develop therapeutic relationships with their specialists, attend emotional peer-support meetings twice a month and receive individual counseling with licensed therapists. Sometimes, these services are extended to patients’ families and social networks for further healing.
Read more about the program and its additional services here.
A safe place to be a child
Freeman Health System in Joplin, Mo., founded, through its behavioral health component Ozark Center, a 71-bed treatment facility called Turnaround Ranch. It seeks to normalize life for traumatized young people with mental illness and developmental disorders, as well as individuals who have experienced or have caused physical, emotional or sexual abuse. Patients, who range from ages 10 to 18, typically stay about a year at the Ranch, where they receive 24-hour access to residential care; individual, group, family, and recreational therapies; and psychiatric services. Turnaround Ranch includes residential cottages, a school, a gymnasium, a family life center and an outdoor recreation area.
Read more about the Ranch and its impact here.