Home >Our Services > Residential Care Services

 

Residential care is provided for clients who are not yet ready for independent living.

 

These services include:

 

Room and Board

 

Our residential treatment facility, Balsam House, is situated in a pleasant family neighborhood in north Boulder, very close to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Nearby you will find a coffee shops, restaurants, a grocery store, the North Boulder Park, the North Boulder Recreation Center and a community garden in which residents and staff grow vegetables for the Balsam House table. Nearby, also, are the Boulder Medical Center and Boulder Community Hospital – useful resources for the medical care of our patients.

Balsam House has four single rooms and two double rooms. The maximum capacity is eight residents. There are pleasant outdoor areas in which to sit and talk and enjoy the quiet neighborhood atmosphere and the view of the mountains. The household cat is called Cleo.

 

Residents and staff plan the week’s meals together, shop for groceries and prepare the meals as a team. In this way it is easy to accommodate residents’ food preferences. Often, previous Balsam House residents are invited to stop by, help prepare meals and stay for lunch or dinner.

 

Residents have keys for their rooms and can secure their belongings. They may use their own laptops in the wireless environment or work on the communal computer in the dining room. Residents are encouraged to bring their cell phones, but there is also a cordless house phone on which residents may make calls in privacy.

 

Staff are present 24 hours a day to respond to the needs of residents.

 

Medication Management and Monitoring

 

Our clients at Balsam House, the majority of whom are being treated for a serious mental illness like bipolar disorder with psychosis, severe depression or schizophrenia, are treated with the same close attention that they would expect to find in a hospital – but in an open-door, non-coercive, domestic environment. All administration of medication is overseen by nursing staff. Psychiatrists adjust medications daily, if necessary. Daily observation allows us to evaluate the resident’s response to medical treatment.

 

Individual and Group Therapy

 

Each resident is assigned a therapist who participates in the daily treatment planning meeting with the team’s psychiatrists and other staff. Therapists provide an array of services from cognitive behavioral therapy to case management (to access benefits, services and after-discharge housing). Some groups, like the creative writing group, the gardening group and the drumming group, are activity-oriented: others are more psychotherapeutically oriented, such as the coexisting disorders groups in which people with psychiatric illness, like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, discuss their substance abuse problems, and the dialectical behavior therapy group which grapples with embedded personality attributes.

 

Family Counseling and Support

 

We emphasize the need for continued contact with family members and, when clients enter treatment, we ask each client to sign a “release of information” form which permits us to provide ongoing treatment information to their closest relatives. We are in regular contact with family members face-to-face or by phone or e-mail.

 

We also offer an online forum for our clients and their family members that provides access to a large database of information about schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and the treatment and consequences of these illnesses. The forum also offers an opportunity for people with serious mental illness and their family members to exchange information with others in similar situations. This supportive and educational online forum is facilitated by our staff and psychiatrists who can offer advice and channel constructive discussions of vital issues. They are assisted in facilitating discussion by trained family members and people who have themselves experienced serious mental illness in the past.

 

Individualized Treatment Planning

 

Every client is a different person with different problems and needs. Starting with a thorough psychiatric evaluation, which involves close family members and friends, we make recommendations for treatment which will be different in every case. There is no fixed program to which the client must adapt himself or herself. We offer an array of services some of which will be appropriate for the client and some not.

 

Psychiatric Services

 

We have a team of three psychiatrists at Colorado Recovery, all highly experienced in the diagnosis and treatment of people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression, schizoaffective disorder and other forms of serious mental illness. Our psychiatrists are Dr. Richard Warner, Dr. Cynthia Dafler and Dr. Julia Maximon. Clients are seen by their psychiatrist as frequently as needed, often daily, to be able to guide them towards remission of symptoms and recovery from disability

 

Case Management to Access Needed Services, Housing, and Benefits

 

Our clients have many needs beyond psychiatric treatment and psychological counseling. Our therapists and case managers assist clients in a multitude of necessary tasks – applying for Social Security benefits, getting to see their family doctor, shopping for clothes, finding housing, getting bus passes, and so on. We make sure that clients get what they need to get their lives back on track and improve their quality of life.

 

Socialization and Recreational Activities

 

Residents of Balsam House are members of a community of people with shared concerns who live, cook, dine and have some fun together. Group meetings at Balsam House may address issues involved in running the household or broader social issues for the US and the world. Residents are involved in productive activities at local nonprofit agencies, trips to the local recreational center, or outings to the movies or restaurants. There are pleasant outdoor areas to sit and talk and many neighborhood amenities like coffee shops, parks and hiking trails.

 

Psychosocial Rehabilitation Including Supported Employment and Educational Support

 

Colorado Recovery places an emphasis on productive activity as an important element promoting recovery from serious disorders like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder. We have a strong staff of vocational counselors who start working with clients as soon as they enter the treatment program. We help clients get back to school, into a volunteer job or into paid employment. Groups of residents and outpatients go regularly to volunteer their time at local nonprofit agencies such as the Emergency Family Assistance Association, the Humane Society or the Farmers’ Market. Residents of Balsam House can also attend our vocational and social club and make contact on a frequent basis with our vocational counselors and case managers in that setting.