RiverValley opens The BIRCH inpatient unit

Through a partnership with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, RiverValley Behavioral Health in Owensboro officially opened The Birch — a 10-bed unit to care for high acuity youth — during a ceremony Tuesday at RVBH’s campus.

The Birch is designed to meet the complex behavioral health needs of youth ages 12-17 who are involved with the Department for Community Based Services (DCBS), and the juvenile justice system and who cannot be served in existing treatment settings. RVBH operates a psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents where the program will be housed.

“There is a critical need for this type of service because for youth with a high need of psychiatric services, the traditional systems of care have not functioned well — the psychiatric residential facilities or short-term stays at the hospital,” said Dr. Wanda Figueroa-Peralta, RVBH’s president and CEO. “For these youth, some of them have had a lot of placements, foster care failed, failed in residential psychiatric care placements, and sometimes there is involvement with the juvenile justice system due to their complex needs.

“There has been a critical need for this type of programming in Kentucky, so this is a response to that gap in care.”

Gov. Andy Beshear addressed the large crowd that gathered for the official opening. He praised everyone involved in the initiative and said the impact of The Birch, the first facility of its kind in the state, will have a monumental impact on the lives of those who participate in the program.

“Far too often, too many Kentucky children, through no fault of their own, face difficult challenges and worries,” Beshear said. “At a very young age, some have been through very painful, very tragic trauma and they need and deserve extra help. It’s our job to be there for them.

“So today we make good on that promise, and we are leading with our Kentucky values of kindness, compassion, empathy and love for one another.”

Figueroa-Peralta said psychologists are seeing a bigger need for more intensive programs among youth. How long a patient remains at The Birch will be determined by each patient’s needs, but stays are expected to be lengthier than at traditional psychiatric hospitals, which she said are often between five days to a week.

“We do have less than 1% of the population that need more than that, and these are youth that need that level of care,” Figueroa-Peralta said “We compare this and treat this like a cancer. Cancer requires a higher level of training and the opportunity to use the most current treatments. That’s what we’re doing here. It’s the first of its kind.”

Figueroa-Peralta credited all of the stakeholders who have come together to make the project happen.

“All of the departments in the cabinet came together, working and developing this program and having this communication and being able to provide the funding to make it happen, to retrofit our facilities for that to encourage the safety of the patients and safety of our staff,” she said. “That’s required some major investment, and we’re pleased to see Giov. Beshear and the cabinet working with us to fund this program and make it available at our hospital in Owensboro.

“We hope that this program becomes not just a model in our commonwealth, but also a national model. The need is there, and we have to try something different, and we have to put in our best effort.”

Figueroa-Peralta said RVBH’s standing as a leader in psychiatric services in the region made it the perfect fit to be home to The Birch — which was named after the Birch tree, which symbolizes strength and endurance.

“What is unique about RiverValley, as a regional community mental health center, we have the whole array of services,” she said. “We can supply services for a lifespan. For families that are involved in the lives of these youth, when they’re discharged from the program, we’re able to get them into multiple services that we offer in our organization that are community based, that are not in-patient. That is something that is unique.

“We’re the only community mental health center that operates a hospital. We’re one of the best kept secrets, and when they were looking at clinically where they have the best opportunity to have this program and be successful, they selected RiverVally.”

The Birch’s first patients were admitted last week.

Figueroa-Peralta said more than 50 people have been hired to staff The Birch in clinical areas in behavioral health.

“We’re bringing the best to work with us,” she said.