Northwestern Medicine opens new behavioral, mental health clinic in Sycamore

SYCAMORE – Northwestern Medicine recently opened a new behavioral health clinic in Sycamore meant to offer programs for area residents in need of outpatient and specialized mental health services.

Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital launched its Behavioral Health Partial Hospitalization and Intensive Outpatient Treatment programs for adults at the Behavioral Health Services Sycamore Clinic in November.

The two programs bridge the gap between traditional outpatient services and inpatient hospitalization by allowing patients to live at home while benefitting from intensive behavioral health care at the Sycamore based clinic. Patients in both the Behavioral Health Partial Hospitalization Program and the Intensive Outpatient Treatment Program receive psychiatric support, individual counseling, family therapy and spend time in several other therapy groups.

“Access to more group therapy is especially effective as it helps assure individuals that they are not alone in their thoughts, feelings or circumstances,” said Marissa Kirch, manager of the two programs at the Sycamore clinic.

Kirch said Northwestern Medicine had been struggling to find options for outpatient clients suffering from severe depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or extensive trauma history that isn’t a long car ride away.

“We’ve been having clients have to drive about 40, 45 minutes to get to facilities like this, so it’s extremely exciting for our outpatient clients,” Kirch said.

Patients in the Partial Hospitalization Program undergo intensive treatment for up to six hours a day Monday through Friday. The Intensive Outpatient Treatment Program, described as a step down from the other service, has patients meet for a few hours at the Sycamore clinic three or four times a week.

So far the programs only support adult patients.

Services for adolescents mirroring the adult programs is expected to begin at the clinic in March, officials said. Among the facility’s features that will be utilized for adolescent programs is the expressive therapy room, a space with desks that be tilted toward the individual occupying it.

“I think patients enjoy things like that where it’s not just your standard table or your standard circle of chairs,” Kirch said. “The more expressive therapies are pretty exciting to patients to kind of get that variety, especially if they’re here for three to six hours, you kind of have to spice it up.”

Cheryl Beutell, a nurse practitioner at the clinic, said she feels great about the new programs and believes it’s a plus for the area.

“So DeKalb doesn’t have anything like this, and as we were trying to call different areas and ... just let them know that we’re here – Oh my God. It gets worse the further out you get,” Beutell said. “Psychiatric services is one of those things that’s just not as widely supported in the area so this is something that has been sorely lacking.”

Kirch said the aim of the facility is essentially to allow patients to still carry on with their everyday lives while receiving treatment at a level normally only seen through full hospitalization.

“Most people are not a huge fan of being hospitalized, so this provides a step option before hospitalization to see, ‘Can we try a day program that might help before you have to go do something where you’re out of work now for a couple of weeks,’ ” Kirch said.

Kirch said individuals who think they’d benefit from the programs at the Behavioral Health Services Sycamore Clinic can have a therapist or psychiatric provider refer them or they can personally call, self-refer and ask for an evaluation.