After clearing a major funding milestone last year, Central Oregon’s first residential treatment facility for youth in acute mental health crisis is moving ahead with a new anticipated opening date of summer 2027.
Local health providers and advocates say the 15-bed child psychiatric facility planned for Redmond will be a lifeline for Central Oregon youth with acute mental health issues. That’s because they’ll no longer have to wait days or weeks in an emergency room for space in an overnight facility — or travel across the mountains to get there.
Construction is expected to begin in July and last approximately one year.
“We are moving ahead, we have a date for completion,” Deschutes County Health Services Director Holly Harris told the Deschutes County Commission at an April 20 meeting. “At this point we just have to work through the details, which is no small thing.”
“This is an all-hands-on-deck effort,” Harris added. “It has been since the day we started talking about the project.”
Landing a child psychiatric facility east of the Cascades has long been a priority for a coalition of local health providers, agencies and Central Oregon lawmakers. Funding totaling about $8 million came together last year when the Oregon legislature allocated $3.1 million and Congress earmarked $1.3 million for the project. The Oregon Health Authority matched the legislature’s $3 million contribution. The Central Oregon Health Council chipped in $750,000 and Pacific Source gave $75,000.
Central Oregon already has long-term residential facilities that treat youth for substance abuse and mental health disorders, Harris said, but this facility will be different because it’s licensed to serve people with a high level of acuity — someone struggling with a significant mental health condition who could be a danger to themselves or others.
“These are the kids that, up until this point, have been stuck in our emergency department waiting on a bed to open up in the metro area that they could get that level of care at,” Harris told the Source.
Part of the hope is to curb above-average youth suicide rates. From 2000 to 2020, 58% of all Deschutes County deaths among 10 to 17-year-olds were suicides, compared to 29% in the State of Oregon and 19% in the United States.
It may also ease another troubling trend for emergency departments: the increasing number of youth in recent years who stayed in the emergency room for more than 24 hours.
“This facility will not only expand the number of child psychiatric beds available in the state, but it will also mean that children who need that level of support can stay in Central Oregon and not have to travel hours away from home,” said Alandra Johnson, spokesperson with the St. Charles Health System, a collaborator on the project.
The new treatment center will be built near the St. Charles hospital and the Deschutes County Behavioral Health buildings in Redmond, on the same property as a 16-bed adult facility that broke ground in September. The owner is Jackson’s House, a company with residential treatment centers throughout Southern California and Oregon. Headwaters Behavioral Health, an Idaho-based mental health provider with a clinic in Redmond, will run the treatment programs.
Harris said Deschutes County won’t own or operate the facility but still has a “pretty high level of responsibility” to ensure it meets the requirements of the funding.
This article appears in the Source April 30, 2026.
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