MONTEREY – Montage Health’s new Ohana Campus — which will house the first-of-its-kind program for California youth and families, created by nationally renowned youth mental health leaders — was celebrated Wednesday with an opening event for media and special guests.
“I’ve worked for more than 25 years in youth mental health throughout the East Coast and now in California,” said Dr. Susan Swick, executive director, Ohana, and Montage Health’s chief mental health officer, “and I’ve never worked in a program where we were able to try to create an actual system of care.”
The Ohana program is built on an idea that mental illness is always treatable and can often be prevented, according to Swick. Mental fitness – like physical fitness – can be developed and sustained.
The Ohana campus at 6 Lower Ragsdale Dr., Ryan Ranch, in Monterey, comprises a 16-bed residential and outpatient facility of 55,600 square feet spread over three attached multi-story buildings on different levels of the hilly terrain connected by covered exterior walkways and courtyard spaces, surrounded by, and with sweeping views of, nature on an eight-acre site built among rolling hills and oak trees
The star of the event was the facility itself along with featured speakers Dr. Steven Packer, president and CEO, Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula and Montage Health, Dr. Swick, Ohana Youth Advisory member Normandy Filcek, Design Partner, NBBJ Architects Jonathan Ward, FAIA, and Kevin Causey, vice president and chief development officer, Montage Health, who emceed the event.
Shaped by neuroscience research, the campus was designed to ensure young people and families feel welcome, comfortable, safe and supported.
Ward explained that when designing the facility his team thought about creating a place for healing that would take into consideration the kids, caregivers and families, using nature’s own healing powers to convey family, warmth, well-being and care. The shape of the building’s exterior is that of an embrace for those who come into it and the area that surrounds it. It is a sprawling campus of spaces catering to patient care.
Features of the new facility include an outpatient treatment wing, 16 residential beds, individual, group and family treatment rooms, meditation and private comfort rooms, indoor and outdoor recreational and quiet spaces, a gym, kitchen and dining area, family resource center, space for community activities, classrooms and space for training and workshops. The Ohana campus has been awarded the 2023 Structures Awards honor by the Silicon Valley Business Journal and the 2022 Healthcare Design Award from the American Institute of Architects.
The program was created in 2018 with an unprecedented $105.8 million gift from philanthropist Bertie Bialek Elliot to the Montage Health Foundation, according to Montage Health. It represented the largest donation in Monterey County ever, and one of the most significant philanthropic commitments in health care nationwide. Part of the gift was used to build the Ohana campus, construct a team of youth mental health professionals and establish an endowment to provide long-term funding for Ohana’s programs.
Packer said the Ohana program is unique in that it is very rare to have a health system invest this level of resources to address an area that is not nearly as lucrative as other health care programs that donors invest in and that hospitals pursue.
“We think that this is going to be profoundly impactful on the health of our community for generations to come because, frankly, if we can bend the arc on a young person’s mental health and get them essentially cured, or treated, that could lead to an entire lifetime of health and functionality,” said Packer. “It just makes a lot of sense for us to invest in our youth in this regard. It’s just a really challenging time to be an adolescent. Between social media, that could be profoundly damaging, to social isolation that’s occurred for the last number of years especially with the pandemic, (to) the opioid epidemic …. all of those conspired to make it difficult for young people, so we think this is a great resource for our community.”
Ohana Youth Advisory member Normandy Flicek spoke of her experience as a patient at Ohana about three years ago.
“What was initially overwhelming soon became very comfortable. I grew closer to the other kids in DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy) and making our silly skits to practice the skills we learned was the highlight of my week,” said Flicek. “What I learned in DBT and individual therapy got me through my worst mental-health moments. It’s getting me through high school and the skills and strategies will stay with me as I go through college. I’m endlessly proud to have given back to Ohana in whatever small capacity and know whatever energy I put in will help other patients like me in the future.”
Swick said the Ohana campus is an incredible space for all of its programs. It supports the team so that its clinicians can collaborate with one another so they can retain their calm and curious posture while learning from each other, from families, and from patients.
“So we, as a program, can also learn what’s working, what’s not working, what are we going to keep as we grow, and what are we going to revise and try again,” said Swick. “Our hope is that in a few years we’ll start knowing what’s working really well and we can share it with other communities so they don’t need a hundred-million dollars to get started.”
Swick said that she will know Ohana has been successful if it is able to “operationalize both how we approach diagnosis and treatment in a way that is collaborative and that activates the family and the prevention” aspect.
She explained that when Ohana can operationalize how young people, and the parents, teachers, coaches, trainers, faith leaders and all those caring adults that are in the orbit of kids, can understand what they are collectively doing to build mental health, it will happily be shared with other communities.
“I will feel like we will have really succeeded,” said Swick. “Bertie’s gift gave us a chance to build a center, to be trial and erroring some of our interventions, where we don’t yet have evidence to guide us, and developing programs that center on the family and on evidence-based treatment where we have that, but also as we learn what works with prevention, what works with parents – that’s what we’ll be sharing with other communities. I’m hopeful that we’ll get there. That will be true success.”
