REDMOND, Ore. — A first-of-its-kind inpatient mental health facility for youth is set to open in Central Oregon, aiming to keep teens with severe conditions closer to home instead of traveling across the Cascades for care.
Right now, teens with high acuity or severe mental health conditions must travel to Portland for treatment.
“What we do have in our area is outpatient level of care and some other resources, but we don’t have that really sort of high acuity inpatient level of care currently,” Deschutes County Health Services Director Holly Harris said.
Those spots are often filled, leaving youth needing service in limbo.
“They end up in the hospital emergency room,” Harris said. “They often have to wait, sometimes weeks, sometimes up to a month for a bed to open up in the (Portland) metro area for them to go receive inpatient level of care.”
More than 100 youth spent over 24 hours in the ER awaiting behavioral health services in 2025, according to St. Charles. That trend has been going on for a long time.
“For more than a decade, there has been this issue of youth who are in this situation that are having to spend weeks and months in an emergency department,” Harris said.
To address that need, Deschutes County, St. Charles and other local medical organizations have teamed up to build the first facility dedicated for high acuity mental health treatment for youth in Central Oregon.
“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,” St. Charles spokesperson Alandra Johnson said in a statement.
The facility is called Headwaters Behavioral Health Center and will be built near the Homestead Pump Track in Redmond. It will be located behind an adult residential mental health treatment facility that’s currently being built.
The youth facility will offer 15 beds specifically for 12- to 17-year-olds, allowing residents to receive around the clock care without having to cross the Cascades.
“Now we’ll be able to keep youth in their home community near their families, which will just provide better outcomes for everyone,” Harris said.
Harris said construction on Headwaters will begin this summer and last about a year. The first patients are expected to be admitted in fall 2027.