Mental Health Center In Claremore Hopes To Keep Families United During Treatment Process

The GRAND Mental Health Family Treatment Center in Claremore is set to open to the public next month.

The building will have special areas for families where they can stay together based on their needs.

Josh Cantwell, the Chief Operating Officer, says the facility is built in a way to help families work through a crisis instead of leaving a child at the facility alone.

“When parents are involved in treatment, the outcomes are better,” said Cantwell. “When we can keep families together during these especially serious times of crisis, where it's more important than ever for families to be working and learning coping skills and ways of interacting."

He says the center will give families the chance to work on communicating in a better way- through ways like having meals together and spending time in common areas.

"We give the parent an earpiece, and the parent's able to put an earpiece in, and we give them help with communication,” said Cantwell. “So when they come upon these times when they've struggled with communications, creating conflict in the past, we let them practice, we teach them new skills.”

The hope is that it will help the kid from returning to the same environment that caused the concern.

"Maybe learning some ways to act different or cope different with issues, when they come back, and if the parents haven't also had the opportunity to grow, the kids coming back into an environment that may be exactly the same as the environment that they left from,” said Cantwell.

The center is set to start seeing its first patients in mid-December.