Staff members of the First Step Behavioral Healthcare Unit inside of Twin Rivers Regional Medical Center in Kennett are proud of the crisis stabilization treatment program which offers many benefits and services to both adults and adolescents. Pictured from left, Robin Callahan, Jolean Duer, program director Jerry Paris, Rhonda Johnson, and Tiffany Parker. [Click to enlarge]

The world today can be trying and complicated. Life is simply demanding and can often be so overwhelming that individuals experience pressures that may result in feelings of hopelessness and extreme anxiety. Without treatment, the situation is left unresolved and the problems can lead to interference within one's work, relationships, and personal responsibilities.

However, there is great hope for adults and adolescents who are interested in knowing about their treatment options in terms of comprehensive impatient psychiatric care.

The First Step Behavioral Healthcare Unit, located inside of Twin Rivers Regional Medical Center of Kennett offers a wide variety of services and treatment components that restructure lifestyles in such a way that stressors are diminished and people are restored to their highest level of functioning, according to program director, Jerry Paris.

An open environment style approach allows the program to emphasize patient strengths and responsibility for their own well-being maximizing the efficiency of each patient's stay. Encouragement of family members and loved ones involvement in the treatment process is made possible by offering tools such as educational groups held within the unit in attempts to give everyone a better understanding of the patients illness, treatment, and recovery process. In addition, individual therapy sessions with the patient and their significant others are also encouraged.

While Paris really believes in what the program has to offer, he feels it important for people to know that they are not complete healers.

"People don't come in here broke and we don't fix them," said Paris.

He explained that they simply prepare people to move on, to have hope that things can be different and that they attempt to do so within certain time constraints. The adult and adolescent patient would typically spend an average stay of 5 to 7 days, so it is relatively short term unless extended time is appropriate.

The multi-disciplinary treatment is in collaboration with Family Counseling Center, Inc. and offers a team of highly qualified mental health professionals consisting of a medical physician, medical director, psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, certified counselors, clinical social workers, recreational therapist, and psychiatric nurses.

According to Paris the unit provides treatment components including, but not limited to, medical history, physical treatment, psychiatric and substance abuse treatment, psychological testing and consultations, dietary evaluations, psychopharmacology, individual and group psychotherapy, experiential and expressive therapy, cognitive and behavioral therapy, recreational therapy, specialized nursing care, social work services, outpatient and aftercare programs, and additional referral services.

"One of the reasons I joined the staff at First Step is because they offer continuous care and work with Family Counseling Center who gives the patient so many options of aftercare," Paris said.

Paris added that he held Dr. Eddie Lorenzo, medical director for the program, in the highest regard. He described working with Lorenzo as a privilege and contributed additional reasons for his employment with the facility to the fact that he would be given the opportunity to work with the man he looked up to and considered a friend.

"The staff as a whole is wonderful, Melissa Samuelson is our chief nursing officer and Mona Shepard is nurse manager for the unit and they are great, we have a good thing here and want to help people help themselves" he said.

The crisis stabilization unit provides information 24 hours per day and referrals are accepted from any person or healthcare professional who knows someone needing impatient psychiatric treatment. The prospective patient will receive an appointment for a confidential assessment for admission and services are covered by most health insurance plans including Medicaid and Medicare.