Kerr offers a wide range of intensive psychiatric services for children and support for their families, creating possibilities for a healthy, productive life for each child. Programs include a therapeutic preschool, a crisis psychiatric care facility, outpatient services, community-based treatment, a family resource center and foster care. These programs served 998 unduplicated children and families in the last year.
Kerr also works with children and adults with developmental disabilities. The organization operates 44 group homes and also serves people in their own apartments. Kerr also offers programs that help people with developmental disabilities connect with their community through job and volunteer placements. 287 people benefited from these programs during the last year.
Youth &Family Services
Intensive Community-Based Treatment Services
Kerr served 127 low-income children, ages 4 to 17, with emotional and behavioral health challenges who were at risk of losing their home or school placement. Therapy, skills training and intensive behavioral support allowed 82% of children to remain safely in their home setting. 75% of children showed a decrease in incidences of major behavioral problems.
Crisis Psychiatric Care
Kerr provided who short-term crisis psychiatric care for 314 children who posed an immediate danger to themselves or others. 77% of children were stabilized and able to successfully transition to a less intensive level of care, including returning home to their family.
Community-Based Outpatient Services
Kerr provided services to 318 children who required mental health treatment, skills training and family support to be maintained in the community and out of institutions.
Kerr Early Intervention Program – KEIP
Kerr served 32 children, ages 3-5, with emotional issues and learning delays, with 88% transitioning to a less intensive level of care such as mainstream kindergarten, preschool or Head Start. In partnership with the Multnomah
Early Childhood Program, the children and their families received preschool education, therapy and counseling.
Therapeutic & Special Needs Foster Care
Kerr served 98 children in foster care who have both mental health
challenges and developmental disabilities and require skills training and extensive foster parent support. The organization provided care for another 22 children in foster care who require special services and therapy due to their emotional challenges that are often the result of past abuse and/or neglect. In the last year Kerr also recruited, trained and certified more than 50 new foster families.
Family Resource Center
In addition to families served by Kerr, another 87 families from the community accessed this center – a free resource for any family caring for a child with emotional and mental health challenges.
Developmental Disabilities Services
Group Homes for Youth: Kerr provided 24-hour care and treatment for 102 youth, ages 10 to 18, with developmental disabilities and mental health challenges in 15 group homes. More than half of the group homes in Oregon that care for this vulnerable population of children are now operated by Kerr.
Group Homes for Adults: Kerr provided a neighborhood home in a residential community for 113 men and women with developmental disabilities in 28 group homes and served 112 adults with developmental disabilities (including 66 group home residents) in Community Inclusion programs. Here, participants entered the work force, joined in community activities and pursued hobbies. 90% of all adults with disabilities met their personal goals or are well on their way.
Skills Training and Supported Living
Kerr supported 4 men and women with developmental disabilities who live in their own home. These individuals received assistance in improving their skills in personal care, cooking, shopping and other daily activities.
RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
In 2010 Kerr opened a new group home specifically designed to serve transition age young adults, ages 18 to 21, who have both a developmental disability and mental health challenge. This home is unique in that it meets the needs of youth who “age out” of the state’s developmental disabilities system at age 18 but continue to require 24-hour comprehensive care. This new home is located in Hillsboro and serves three young adults at one time.
In September 2010, the Kerr Early Childhood Intervention Program underwent a significant change in the way it serves the children in its care – young children, ages three to five years, with significant mental health challenges and behavioral difficulties. This change was in response to best practices that now show that children with mental health challenges are best served when they are able to remain in their own community, when possible
and not cared for in a residential living facility or schooled in a separate classroom from their peers.
In response to this updated, preferred model of serving children in their own natural environment, Kerr has closed its therapeutic preschool classroom and now serves children in their original preschool or kindergarten classroom to stabilize their placement and prevent them from being removed. Now, through Early Childhood Outpatient Services, skills trainers and therapists work closely with the child and school staff members on-site and also provide at-home family support to address any parenting issues or family problems impacting the child’s behavior or performance at school.
In 2010, Kerr also began a home environment improvement project seeks to ensure each Kerr group home for youth offers a welcoming, positive family-like atmosphere for the children who live there – children, ages 10 to 18, who have both a mental health challenge and developmental disability. A pilot project was completed at one home and funding has been secured to provide improvements at five additional homes in the next year.
In 2010 Kerr opened a new group home specifically designed to serve transition age young adults, ages 18 to 21, who have both a developmental disability and mental health challenge. This home is unique in that it meets the needs of youth who “age out” of the state’s developmental disabilities system at age 18 but continue to require 24-hour comprehensive care. This new home is located in Hillsboro and serves three young adults at one time.
In September 2010, the Kerr Early Childhood Intervention Program underwent a significant change in the way it serves the children in its care – young children, ages three to five years, with significant mental health challenges and behavioral difficulties. This change was in response to best practices that now show that children with mental health challenges are best served when they are able to remain in their own community, when possible
and not cared for in a residential living facility or schooled in a separate classroom from their peers.
In response to this updated, preferred model of serving children in their own natural environment, Kerr has closed its therapeutic preschool classroom and now serves children in their original preschool or kindergarten classroom to stabilize their placement and prevent them from being removed. Now, through Early Childhood Outpatient Services, skills trainers and therapists work closely with the child and school staff members on-site and also provide at-home family support to address any parenting issues or family problems impacting the child’s behavior or performance at school.
In 2010, Kerr also began a home environment improvement project seeks to ensure each Kerr group home for youth offers a welcoming, positive family-like atmosphere for the children who live there – children, ages 10 to 18, who have both a mental health challenge and developmental disability. A pilot project was completed at one home and funding has been secured to provide improvements at five additional homes in the next year.
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