The ribbon was cut Thursday morning on the new Boys Town National Research Hospital Residential Treatment Center near 139th and Pacific.
Hospital Director John Arch says the 80-bed facility will be a temporary home for children from 5-18 years old with severe behavioral and mental health problems, who require supervision, safety and therapy.
The expansion will allow them to move the 46 bed facility near 30th and California to the west Omaha location. In addition, the center will be the new home of the Boys Town Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic. In 2013, a new facility was built on Pacific Street that housed 34 children and Arch says it was an eye opener.
“It was clear from the beginning that a new facility with state-of-the-art design for these kinds of behavior problems was making a significant difference in the treatment of these children,” Arch says. “Rather than upgrading our original facility downtown, we decided to construct a bigger facility and put the two programs together under one roof.”
The Center will serve children who experience severe behavioral problems, such as a history of school failures, aggression, self-injury, property damage, or a history of police and court involvement. Children often come to the program with co-existing medical conditions, further complicating treatment. Without this intensive treatment, reunifying children with their family shows little promise.
Children being treated in the downtown center will begin moving to the new facility at the end of May. In addition to more room for treatment, the new facility has an outdoor playground with park area and a gymnasium.
The vacated 18-000 square feet downtown in the downtown facility is being evaluated for the development of office space, research labs and patient care.