County breaks ground on new facility to serve children and adolescents inpatient mental health care needs
In December of 2014, at a holiday party, Sigrid Pinsky asked County Supervisor Joe Simitian a simple and direct question: “Why aren’t there any inpatient hospital beds for kids and teens in mental health crisis in Santa Clara County?”
Simitian remembers, “I thought, that can’t be right; I went back to the office and discovered it was absolutely right – and undeniably wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.” Now, more than eight years later, after a lot of hard work and what Simitian calls “painful” delays, construction is about to begin. “Finally,” said Simitian, “It’s really going to happen.”
Santa Clara County’s inpatient psychiatric hospital for children and teenagers – part of a sparkling new center for behavioral health services – began construction with a ceremonial groundbreaking for a state-of-the-art facility. Demolition, excavation and grading of the site began last fall.