By Staci DaSilva
sdasilva@kcautv.com
Jackson Recovery Centers were founded over 35 years ago as an adolescent drug and alcohol recovery program. It has since grown into much more than that, but that original program is what's in need of a major expansion. And it's getting one.
Traci Merchant, Program Director of Child and Adolescent Operations at Jackson Recovery Centers said, "To think of a 12, 13, 14 year old addicted to prescription medications, marijuana, those types of things can seem pretty unrealistic to folks but it's a growing problem and the ages that we're seeing kids are actually younger and younger."
That's why folks at the Jackson Recovery Centers Adolescent Program have decided to expand from their current location at the Boys & Girls Home to a spacious, more serene setting on the west side of Sioux City. This will add to the campus of 3 other Jackson Recovery Centers nearby.
The new $9 million facility will add about 25 in-patient beds and more importantly, a 12-bed crisis and stabilization unit.
Merchant said, "That is for kids who are at a real crisis point and typically need, it's hospitalization really."
With the new Jackson Recovery Centers Child And Adolescent Recovery Hospital, initial medical care, inpatient and outpatient treatment can be located at the same place which makes transitions easier for the kids.
But the environment of caring is something that will never change.
"The other things that we provide are love and hope and opportunity. And the kids that come to us accomplish things that they never thought that they could accomplish," said Merchant.
Crews will be breaking ground on the project this coming spring and the new building is set to open in spring of 2014.
And an update on another health care facility being built in Sioux City, this one's a bit farther along.
The Saint Luke's new clinic specializing in outpatient care is well on its way to completion.
Thanks to nice weather, the project is on schedule and set to be finished by June. The new clinic sits on Sunnybrook Drive and cost $26.7 million.
The facility will house primary care, urgent care and specialty clinics including an internal medicine department.
