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| Name |
Heartland Behavioral Hlth Serv |
| Address |
1500 West Ashland Street |
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| Town |
Nevada |
| State |
Missouri |
| Country |
USA |
| Post Code |
64722 |
| Phone |
800 654 9605 |
| Fax |
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| Email |
| Website |
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About Heartland Behavioral Hlth Serv
** About **
We are about the quality treatment of children. We believe in returning children to families or the community as quickly as possible. A big institution isn't the ideal place for kids, but Heartland is a safe, positive environment where they can receive the treatment they need. We offer services and specialty programs that other residential programs do not. Our focus is to change the lives of children and families.
** Mission **
Welcome, my name is Alyson Harder, CEO of Heartland Behavioral Health Services. For more than 100 years, this facility has provided care and treatment for children. We are proud of our team of professionals, our newly renovated facility and our expansive campus that provides a “great place for kids when kids really need a great place.”
The mission of Heartland is to provide programs and services that will improve the overall health and well-being of children and their families. We achieve this by providing exceptional care through a talented team of health professionals. Our clinical team works diligently to build on the strengths of the child and to provide them with the support they need to mend their emotional wounds.
We are fortunate to be nestled upon a 50-acre campus that allows children to explore their innate creativity and benefit from the healing powers of nature. Our children are exposed to expressive therapy techniques that include art, drama and music. Activity therapy is enhanced through the use of a fishing pond, a ROPES course, gymnasium, tennis court, bowling alley, basketball court and baseball field. We are especially proud of our newly built 5,000-square-foot indoor and outdoor equestrian center. The Equestrian program is unique to our facility and has proven to be effective in the treatment of behavior disordered youth. Our children learn to trust themselves and to once again trust others.
Our team of professionals is dedicated to providing prompt access to services in a compassionate and confidential environment. Heartland provides a continuum of care that ranges from short term acute psychiatric hospitalization to longer term residential treatment. We are specialized in the treatment of pre-adolescent youth, intensive behavior modification, sexual disorders, those with highly traumatized backgrounds and substance addiction.
At Heartland children learn strategies to cope with everyday challenges as they are exposed to a holistic approach to health and wellness. We will provide them with a safe and structured environment to begin the process of healing and behavioral change. Our goal is to teach children how to live successfully in the community. I am proud to be the CEO and the leader of the Heartland family. Together we can make a difference in the life of a child.
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History Of Heartland Behavioral Hlth Serv
More Than 100 Years of Caring for Kids
Since its original construction in 1889, our facility in Nevada, Mo., has been dedicated to caring for children. Originally built by the Christian Church as a university, Franciscan nuns purchased the building sight unseen for $10,000 in 1892.
A Labor of Love
The sisters arrived in Nevada on Sept. 3, 1893, and opened a day school when a man named Hogan was unable to care for his children due to the death of his wife. Hogan approached the sisters to take in his children. These were the first of many children raised at what was soon to become St. Francis Orphanage.
Those who could afford to pay for their children to stay paid $5 a month, but there were some years when the sisters did not receive a single dollar.
In 1901, Sister M. John Hau was unanimously voted the Mother Superior. She received the same honor each succeeding year until her death in 1948. Mother John, only 26 years old when she came to America, spent her life devoted to the honor and glory of her Master and the welfare of humanity.
Orphanage Reemerges from Ashes
In 1915, a fire burned St. Francis Orphanage to the ground. Mother John met the loss of her beloved convent with the same staunch courage that typified her life. With tears streaming down her face as she watched the facility burn, her only feeling was gratitude that God had spared the children from death and injury. When asked about rebuilding, without hesitation she replied, “Yes, we will rebuild, and we will keep all of the children.”
When it was discovered that there was not enough money from their insurance claim to rebuild, the sisters took it upon themselves to salvage the remains, washing more than 350,000 bricks by hand to use in the reconstruction.
The citizens of Nevada opened their arms and hearts to the sisters and the children. Community leaders pulled together to help provide for the needs of the orphans and secured temporary housing.
On June 18, 1916, the cornerstone for the new building was laid. Exactly one year later, the new convent and chapel were dedicated.
A new plan was put into place in 1952. St. Francis Orphanage soon became St. Francis Academy, a boarding school and high school for girls.
Heartland Continues Legacy of Devotion to Youth
The facility began serving behavioral health needs in 1982, when Heartland Behavioral Health Services first opened its doors as a psychiatric facility. Improvements to the 1916 structure were completed in 1962 and 1986.
As the sisters prepared to leave their historical piece of Vernon County in 1982, one of the nuns offered her thoughts on modern families. She felt modern parents were too permissive in allowing their children to make their own decisions. “The need for boarding schools where young people may find individual attention, supervision and love is greater today than before due to more working mothers and broken homes.”
The St. Francis Sisters are now happily relocated on an 82-acre wooded site in Independence, Mo., but the halls of Heartland hold their presence and their dedication to needy youth.
As the history of this building continues to be written every day, its mission is perhaps best described by words found in an old brochure. Heartland’s staff feels these words are as true today as the day they were written:
“We want our students to learn to stand erect on their own feet, to acquire true ideals, a balanced outlook on life and a true sense of spiritual values. These things form the basis of the lives they lead, the work they do and what they become. It’s in the very air and spirit of the place, and it takes root and grows in their hearts. They carry it away with them when they leave and think and talk and act differently the rest of their lives because of it.”
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