By Chris Miller, Assistant Editor, Facility Market

A Florida teen residential mental health treatment facility plans to admit its first patients within weeks. The Dade City Discovery Behavioral Health Center is a 24-bed facility in Pasco County. It opened Aug.12 to assist teenagers who have been hospitalized for mental health reasons or who have behavioral health needs that can’t be met by outpatient services, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

To receive services, adolescent patients can either be referred by their doctor or legal guardian by calling the center to get a screening. It is planned that an average stay in the treatment will last 30-45 days. One-on-one and group therapy sessions with therapists are offered at the center. An education liaison will work with the patients’ schools to help them keep up with their classes while away at this treatment facility. The facility leaves around 20 hours every week for school work and improving education. 

Parents or legal guardians will get periodic updates on their teenager’s progress and have designated daily hours to speak with them as they please. In-person visits are currently not allowed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but families can visit their children off-site.

Since mental health can affect anyone, the facility offers weekly support groups for family members to cope with what their children are going through. To set up the patients for success, there is a slow process for leaving the treatment center.

Before patients are discharged, the center connects them to a local partial hospitalization program consisting of four to five psychiatric visits per week. Then patients go into an intensive outpatient program followed by weekly talk therapy. Discovery Behavioral Health has three treatment centers in Florida and 123 total in 12 states that specialize in eating disorders, substance use and behavioral health treatment for different ages.