The Riverside County ������Ƶ Mental Health Rehabilitation Center (MHRC) opened and accepted its first three residents on Wednesday, May 13, 2020.

The Riverside County ������Ƶ MHRC is licensed as a 31-bed sub-acute residential program located in Riverside, CA. The program provides longer-term mental health recovery services within a supportive, structured, and secure inpatient environment that is designed to help residents prepare to move to the community and/or lower levels of care.

How is this Start-Up Different?

Normally, a new program takes between 90 and 120 days to open. The amount of time allows us to hire and train staff, set up IT equipment and medication rooms, complete construction, and create a welcoming space for residents to enter. Our Riverside County partners secured the license, facility, and many operational contracts in advance of our contract which gave us a jump start in completing the necessary startup operations.

Together with our county partners, we submitted a proposal in 24 hours, and we opened in 13 days!

The reason for the speedy set-up: to move individuals “stuck” in acute care facilities into residential to make room in acute care for those who need that type of setting.

Since the county IMDs were not accepting admissions, the unit had to house individuals at their inpatient treatment facility, which left those who needed acute levels of care backed up in emergency room settings. To better serve the needs of this population, RUHS‐BH submitted an emergency licensing and certification application to the DHCS to create the MHRC.

Our first cohort of staff received orientation at the facility which included an introduction to the many facets of MHRC programming as well as CPI training. The MHRC also benefits from some staff who have worked at other ������Ƶ programs and were already trained in CPI, RCCS, and other ������Ƶ practices. Moving forward as we continue to hire staff, we have developed a plan to train employees on the floor as they start work so they can support residents while learning on the job. Additionally, we are offering flexible CPI classes on all shifts and Start-Up staff Anthony Delgado and Shane Francis are offering nursing and clinical modeling and training as well.

We are so honored to have been chosen to make this program a reality.