Opioid settlement funds designated to build 60-bed youth behavioral health facility in Anderson
Local nonprofit Family Dynamics Resource Center asked the county board for a community match in order to receive $25 million dollars in funding from the state. The funds will be used to develop a 60-bed behavioral health campus for youth. Few details on how the program will operate were provided.
“This project saves lives,” said marriage and family therapist Sandra Wilson during a March 24 county board meeting, as she presented to supervisors on her Redding-based nonprofit Family Dynamics Resource Center.
The board provisionally agreed to provide Family Dynamics with almost $2 million in funding from Shasta County’s opioid litigation settlement. The funds will serve as a community match to draw in another $25 million in state Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program (BHCIP) funds. Together, the funding will be used to build a 60-bed behavioral health campus in Anderson, focused on care for youth in crisis including those with substance use disorders as well as other mental and behavioral health needs.
Wilson’s presentation indicated that of the 60 beds in the facility, 20 would go toward a children’s crisis residential program, 30 toward an adolescent substance use treatment center, and 10 towards what is described as “stabilization and transitional care.”
A staff report provided to supervisors said the new campus will “establish a comprehensive continuum of care for youth experiencing substance use and mental health challenges.” But Wilson’s presentation did not detail the types of substance use treatment — medical or nonmedical — that youths would be receiving while housed at the facility.
The presentation also lacked both a capital and operational budget for the project, information about licensure requirements, and a data-based assessment of the need for such a facility. It’s also unclear at this point how youth will be referred to the center. Wilson could not be reached by phone and did not respond to questions sent by email after the meeting.
Family Dynamics, which was founded in 2010, lists its mission as being to “reduce incidences of child maltreatment through positive parent education and interventions; to help strengthen the bonds between parents and children.” The nonprofit does not currently list substance use disorder treatment among its therapy and counseling services.
After Wilson’s presentation, the board discussed the nonprofit’s viability to facilitate this type of treatment for youths. Supervisor Allen Long — who declined to join other supervisors in voting to approve allocating the $2 million in opioid settlement funds — probed Wilson on her nonprofit’s credentials and relevant experience. Wilson described the youth behavioral health campus as an unlocked facility, prompting Long to ask how the organization would deal with runaways.
“We have the power of over 300 mentors to help children regulate and control their emotions,” she said. “We are not forcing treatment,” Wilson added, saying that both the youth clients and parents will have signed an agreement before they are admitted to the program.
During his questions, Long referenced his experience as a former police officer, having frequently responded to runaway calls from similar facilities in the past. He said Wilson’s presentation left him with “a lot of unanswered questions for this project.”
Other supervisors took a very different stance. To refute Long’s point that clients could leave an unlocked opioid treatment facility, Supervisor Kevin Crye asked Wilson how many youths have run away from the one-week camp her organization has been operating for 10 years. Wilson’s answer was zero.
Crye was also optimistic about the involvement of Les Baugh with the project. The former county supervisor and Anderson pastor also spoke briefly to the board, noting that he had donated a parcel of land assessed at $550,000 for the new facility, and that several of his church’s volunteers are ready to help out.
“I think the government needs to get out of more mental health, and churches need to start stepping up,” Crye said, to which several people in the audience booed. “Sorry, all you guys hate church,” he retorted.
Crye, who opposed another recently proposed behavioral health facility because it would have drawn clients from outside the county, took no issue with Family Dynamics proposal to do the same. It’s unknown at this point how many of the 60 beds are needed to serve Shasta youth, both Wilson and Health and Human Services Director Christy Coleman said.
Supervisor Corkey Harmon also expressed his unfettered support for this facility saying he’s known the folks behind it for years.
“It’s kind of scary, but I love the idea that it’s not a lockdown,” he said, adding that locking children in a facility is not the right approach to helping the vulnerable. He urged other supervisors not to politicize the issue, and vote unanimously in support.
Supervisor Matt Plummer asked hard questions about the project’s past 990 tax filings and pushed Wilson on why she hadn’t yet gotten a letter of support from the Anderson Police Department for the project. He ultimately voted to support designating the $2 million in opioid funds to the project, but not before convincing other supervisors to compel Wilson to attain a letter of support from both law enforcement and probation to gain the funds.
While Plummer expressed mixed feelings about the proposal, he said his concerns weren’t enough to hold him back from designating funds to support youth in crisis.
“I think that oftentimes we don’t have an option where we’re like, yes, this checks all the boxes and we feel 100% comfortable with it,” Plummer said, “but is it better than what we currently have?”
Do you have information or a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.
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There are too many unanswered questions to justify support or opposition of this.
What type of treatment is being administered? How are the youth being incentivized or encouraged to stay and work the program? When patients want to leave, are they released into the community, or will they be taken back home? Who’s liable for damage or theft if somebody in the program decides to leave and makes a bad decision at the expense of the facility’s neighboring residents? What does the data show? Is there actually a need for this in Shasta County? Are they going to bus youth in from elsewhere? Do these patients come from violent backgrounds? Is this facility ACTUALLY going to treat youth only, or are the residents of Anderson going to be hit with an UNO reverse and be stuck with a facility that actually houses adults? Is our police force equipped to handle any extra, potential crime?
As a parent to young children, my concerns FAR outweigh any support for this facility as proposed. Just because land is already available does not mean that it’s the best option, especially not within our residential space where our families and a lot of the elderly reside. Wouldn’t a more rural location be a better fit? Wouldn’t a long walk benefit the person abandoning the program and the community, by allowing for a ‘cool off’ period?
While there generally is a need for more treatment options, is this really the best course of action? Or is this the quickest and easiest? And at whose expense?
This is ridiculous, good ol boys club is still alive & well! No consideration given to support programs already in place. Empire Recovery Center has been helping our community for many years, yet we’re going to line the pockets of the cronies in the name of helping children. What an embarrassment this BOS is!
As mentioned, the vast majority of the money ($25 million) to operate this Anderson Facility, would come from the State of California Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program (BHCIP) and it’s $2.2 billion investment in state wide Round 4 funding, specifically targeting children and youth (ages 0-25), including those involved in, or at risk of involvement in, the child welfare (CWS) and juvenile justice systems, now managed by county courts and probation departments, to provide community-based, least-restrictive care for vulnerable youth.
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This Anderson facility, in effect, will be a large 60-bed group home, funded and licensed by the state and counties of California, under many strict licensing requirements, including kid-to-licensed clinician requirements, kid to certified auld care provider ratios, in house psychritic teartment (often administered by a county MD, paid for by Medi-Cal (Medicaid for California). And depending on the level of placements, such a facility can receive (bill) as much as $16,000 to $17,000 per bed per month. BTY, a certified children’s large group home Administrator – Owner can make over $100,000 a year. Not too bad…
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God (or whatever higher power…) knows we need less war, bombs, and guns, and more beds and treatment for our kids and yes, for adults! And that same higher power knows that kid (or adult) placement beds are very hard to get. Kids can spend days in probation or social workers’ offices, mental hospitals, or jails, waiting for a bed to open up; the demand is HUGE! But, given the (swords through their heads) blow back that Crye mustered to try and kill the True North Center (that would have served kids and adults), this whole story is a bit ironic, but not surprising.
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Anti-Vax Les Baugh and his fellow MAGA compadres like Patrick Jones, militia friend Corky, and Kiven Crye are all about giving Pastor Baugh millions for what seems to be a half-baked tax-free plan for a large group home that will be funded by, yes, wait for it… the State of California! It’s a bit ironic, after all, Crye distains state-funded programs.
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Mr. Crye, out of your philosophy that “government needs to get out of more mental health, and churches (funded by taxpayer money) need to start stepping up,” perhaps Pastor Baugh will name the facility, “The Kevin Crye Ninjia Group Home.”
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Oh, wait…. Who put that Ninji in there?
An unlocked facility with no restriction on who they bring in. What could go wrong? Thank you Kevin Crye. I know who to blame for the drug paraphernalia thown in my front yard and my missing lawn mower.
Cronyism. This is the good ole boy network at work… as it should. Approve money we didnt earn, to our friend that has no detailed plan or experience…. what could go wrong? In construction, when a client asks you if you can do it, you say yes or you are bankrupt. Good luck to everyone involved as they try to step up from family counselors to big money drug rehab shop
Well Nate, after a lot of the stuff you said, I’m surprised that you actually got me to feel some empathy for you and your experience. And I say that, because it sure doesn’t seem like you have a whole lot of empathy for other people from your previous comments.
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But maybe that’s because you’re jaded, at least that’s what it sounds like from this last comment of yours.
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All I can say is that I think that there should be a higher standard for how people treat other people. Even if it’s all made up and just a construct of our stupid minds.
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We can all do better, and we shouldn’t settle just because someone else was or is an asshole.
The evidence is there for you to see. Increased tax payer spending does not reduce homelessness or drug addiction numbers. It does divert money from other proven societal services. A truly empathetic person understands human nature– the fatalism that accompanies this is not an easy concept for Americans to accept as many have not had to compete or truly sacrifice to succeed. The greatest country on earth is pretty cushy. There are doers and there are whiner apologists.