Northwell opens new behavioral health center in Riverhead

Northwell Health celebrated the grand opening of its 12,000-square-foot Behavioral Health Wellness Center at 877 East Main St. in Riverhead with a commemorative ribbon-cutting ceremony last Thursday.

Starting June 1, the new center, which has been in the making for four years, will offer a full spectrum of care through two major programs: an intensive Partial Hospitalization Program for children and teens ages 10 to 17 and traditional Outpatient Behavioral Health Services, including individual therapy, family therapy, group therapy and medication management for patients ages 5 to 21.

Northwell’s leadership said the $5 million project is a major investment in mental health care for children and adolescents up to age 21 who live in Riverhead and the surrounding communities. At the ceremony, Michael Scarpelli, president of South Oaks and Zucker Hills hospitals, described the need for these services on the East End as “urgent.”

“Families in Riverhead and nearby communities have faced significant barriers to accessing care,” Mr. Scarpelli said in a statement. “Our new PHP fills a major gap — there is no similar program within a 45-minute drive — giving families a much-needed local option for intensive services that can prevent emergency room visits or inpatient admissions.”

Mr. Scarpelli explained in a phone interview that the partial hospitalization program is five-day-a-week program for young individuals and groups who need in-patient level care, but do not need to stay in a psychiatric hospital.

“This is an avenue that they can actually get discharged from the inpatient unit quicker because they’re not necessarily ready to be home 100% of the time, but they don’t have to be in that hospital,” Mr. Scarpelli said. “If you have an individual that is, I would say, decompensating in a way that you’re starting to think that regular, outside therapy is not enough, this is a program that you can also utilize, so that you don’t get to the hospitalization. It’s definitely needed in a lot of circumstances, but if we can avoid it, that’s what we’re trying to do by offering these types of services to the community.”

Additionally, he noted, the PHP provides integrated educational services, so young individuals receiving care don’t fall behind on their studies.

For young people living in Riverhead and on the North Fork, the closest intensive services offered by Northwell were previously available at only two facilities: Mather Hospital in Port Jefferson and South Oaks Hospital in Amityville — which can require almost an hour of travel each way.

The new Riverhead facility cuts that time down significantly, and for those in Southold or Cutchogue, the drive is only around 25 to 30 minutes. Mr. Scarpelli said Northwell will also provide transportation services for those living within a 20-mile radius of the building.

“That’s an extra added benefit for those patients, for those families, that simply can’t do it,” he said. “If they can’t go to the service, that’s their pathway to go into an emergency room, that’s their pathway to go into an inpatient care unit — at least in this partial hospitalization program, the kids are allowed to sleep in their own bed at night, they eat dinner with their families, so it’s a little less traumatic from being in that inpatient environment.”

The center’s clinicians specialize in a variety of treatments to address patients’ needs, including Dialectical Behavior Therapy-informed treatment, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Parent and Child Interactive Therapy, Play Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Behavior Modification.

One in five kids has an emotional or behavioral disorder, Mr. Scarpelli said, which is roughly 20% of all children or teens in any region. These disorders include struggles with depression, anxiety, social avoidance, bullying, post-traumatic stress disorder and other issues.

He emphasized that there is also a significant percentage of youth who contemplate suicide — the second leading cause of death among children and young adults ages 10 to 24, according to the Children’s Hospital Association.

The goal of the Northwell Health’s Behavioral Health Wellness Center in Riverhead is to help this age group through therapy, medication management and pinpointing other coping mechanisms that will lead them to living a functional life.

“It’s not like a broken arm, whereas the arm heals itself and then you can kind of go about your business like nothing ever happened,” Mr Scarpelli said. “It’s not like a cold where you’re gonna take some medication like nothing ever happened. You have to work at [a mental health disorder], whether it’s through coping skills or through medication.”

Northwell has also partnered with over 50 local school districts to offer training for faculty and staff members to help them recognize the signs in students who are “suffering silently” and too afraid to ask for help, Mr. Scarpelli said.

The school districts also have access to these dedicated Behavioral Health Centers, where they can receive emergency behavioral or mental health intervention for students who may be in crisis and don’t require emergency room services.

The partnership also provides school consultations with psychiatrists and neuropsychologists, as well as parent workshops, support groups and other community events and services. Mr. Scarpelli said there have been discussions with schools on the North Fork already, as well as meetings with Riverhead CAP and Southold Town Councilwoman Anne Smith.

“One of the biggest things that we have to combat, regardless of putting up these locations, is the stigma associated with receiving care,” Mr. Scarpelli said. “That is probably the biggest barrier to care. It is getting better, but we still have a long way to go. If we were able to fix and solve [it], I think we could do really, really great work.”