Eastern Oregon Children's Multi-Treatment Center – Unofficial Blog

Posts Tagged ‘professionals’

Eastern Oregon Children’s Multi-Treatment Center, also known as Multi-Treatment or EOCMTC, was organized in 1989 and is located at 622 Airport Road in Pendleton, northeastern Oregon. EOCMTC is a non-profit, 501-C-3 corporation designed to serve children with mental disorders who need multiple, coordinated treatment services, primarily within the seventeen east-central counties of Oregon: male and female, ages eight through 17. EOCMTC is professionally accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations (JCAHO), and two licensing bodies insuring compliance with Oregon regulations governing state Day and Residential Treatment Services (previously known as DARTS). EOCMTC has historically worked with some of the most challenging and vulnerable children in the state, including children designated as especially difficult to treat and place by the Target Planning Committee, Oregon State Hospital, Developmental Disabilities, Services to Children and Families, and Oregon Youth Authority.

In the late 1980’s, the State of Oregon formed a group through the Children’s Services Division (now CAF) to evaluate whether there were adequate resources for youth with severely incapacitating mental illness. The few programs that existed to serve these “target problem and level five” youth often had waiting lists of up to two years. It was also found that the majority of these children were placed in regular foster care without implementation of treatment to address their special needs. In response to those findings, Children Services and Mental Health worked together to creatively fund new beds to serve these high-risk youth. EOCMTC is a result of great need and an effort to meet this demand for treatment services. Historically our mission has been to adequately serve and provide an opportunity for some of the most mentally ill children in the state to be able to return home and be a successful part of their community.

EOCMTC integrates an in-house school program, which is part of the local public school system, and a therapeutic “in-home” treatment (in highly trained and certified therapeutic Contract Care Homes, or CCHs) to provide as normal a living arrangement for our children as possible during treatment. If children decline, we also have our residential facility for safe and secure support. While in school, children receive individualized educational instruction, a high staff to student ratio, therapeutic treatment services and specific therapy groups. Treatment topics may include: sexual victimization and reactivity, alcohol and drug abuse, normal childhood development, family therapy, recreational therapy, education about each individual’s mental health problems, social skills training, and real life skills, always striving to build strengths for each child. The therapeutic services for every child are managed by a team of clinical experts which include an educational specialist/certified teacher, a drug/alcohol counselor, a family/individual therapist, and a case assistant which work in concert with the child’s own family and outside support sources, who are led by a Clincal Program Director, Child Psychiatrist, and Clinical Supervisor/Psychologist. This innovative multi-treatment is based on the medical model of review but has elements of traditional outpatient and residential services, focussing on the school, the home, and the community environments as milieus for the treatment experience while still providing the more focused therapeutic attention of a residential facility.

In essence, individualized, therapeutic treatment is on going, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, both in therapeutic foster homes, treatment school, and the center’s offices. Yet the children’s day is a fairly ‘normal’ one during which he goes to school in the morning, and returns to a family in the evenings and weekends. The therapeutic (Contract Care Home or CCH) parents, the therapist, the teacher(s), the child’s family and the Clinical Staff brainstorm and teamwork decisions, information, discipline, rewards, and support, expanding the socialization and accountability of each client far beyond what is available in most treatment settings.

In November of 1998, EOCMTC began a staff secure Assessment and Stabilization Program that offers assessment of children suffering from failures at school and home which are thought to be due to mental illness. In this program, our staff secure facility is utilized initially to access clinical observation round the clock in a closed milieu for up to 14 children. After approximately two or more weeks, most of these children are moved to a therapeutic home under our treatment umbrella of services in order to also observe the children in a community setting and offer less restrictive living accommodations.

The EOCMTC offices are open from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday through Friday, with a professional on-call emergency service available to all treatment members and parents 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, via a mobile phone system. In addition, our staff secure residential facility is operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.