Take a tour of Oaklawn’s new South Bend facility

 

SOUTH BEND, Ind.-- Oaklawn’s primary South Bend facility for mental health and substance abuse treatment services moved into a brand-new facility, just next door to the previous one in South Bend.

The building was purchased in early 2022 from Beacon Health System and took about a year to renovate.

“Rates of people accessing mental health services continue to climb, I think during COVID, a lot of stigma around mental health was broken down,” said Dr. Kristin Tawadros, vice president of outpatient clinical services for Oaklawn. “There’s still a lot of stigma around accessing mental health and substance use services, but some of that decreased.”

Oaklawn continues to expand its footprint in Michiana as a community mental health center, and Tawadros said they’ve outgrown their previous space.

The new facility allows more opportunity for Oaklawn’s expanding services, as the need for treatment grows.

Alicia Sisk, Oaklawn’s manager of marketing and communications, took ABC57’s Annie Kate on a tour of the facility. She said Oaklawn is now able to expand its group therapy services.

“We have more group rooms in this building than we did in our last one,” Sisk said. “It’s a way to get people into treatment faster, it’s proven to be just as effective as individual therapy and sometimes more effective.” 

On the tour, she stopped in a therapy playroom.

“For our youngest clients who may not be able to verbalize what they’re feeling or what’s happening to them, their communication comes through play,” Sisk said.

Another feature of the facility are skills labs.

“We actually have several rooms in the building that are dedicated to skills training,” Sisk said, “but this one features some home essentials.”

Additionally, Oaklawn partners with the Indiana Health Center to provide physical healthcare.

“There’s this statistic that adults with a serious mental illness have a life expectancy 25 years shorter than their peers, and that’s due primarily to a lack of physical healthcare,” Sisk said.

Oaklawn also started operating an Open Access model over a year ago, letting people get same-day treatment, furthering the need for the extra 10,000 square feet the new building provides.

“Under that new model, we’ve seen like a 55% increase in assessments in the first year,” Sisk said. So definitely, more people are coming in for help, reaching out for help. So, we want people to know that we’re here for them, we want to be here for them.”

“We have done a lot in the last couple of years in terms of innovative programming, Open Access is one of them,” Tawadros said. “This move into more crisis services is another area that again puts us at the forefront of what’s happening in the mental health field.”

There will be an official ribbon-cutting and grand opening this Friday at 4 p.m. in front of the new facility, located at 415 E. Madison St.

This location is not to be confused with the 24-hour crisis center operated by Oaklawn, set to open this fall. That location, still under renovation, is located across the street at 420 N. Niles Ave.