A new Santa Clarita teen mental health treatment center is scheduled to open on Friday, and is ready to offer a unique environment for teenagers struggling with mental health issues and drug abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Friday, Insight Treatment Programs is set to open their doors on a brand-new treatment center in Santa Clarita, offering their “unique” approach to teenage mental health.

“We believe that the teens need to have a community, they need to be part of it or feel part of a community,” said Frederik Schulin, CEO of Insight Treatment Centers. “They need to get to know the other kids in the program for them to open up and feel supported.”

Insight Treatment Programs, which was founded over 20 years ago, aims to create this community by putting teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 in an environment where they can get to know and grow closer to one another.

“We have this warehouse space, but it’s more like a clubhouse,” Schulin said. “The kids can sort of hang out and play a little bit of football or some ping pong before they go into the treatment sessions. Our big warehouse space allows for the kids to create community and to get to know each other.”

The facility itself consists of two floors: one for teenagers to hang out in, and another for individual, family, and group treatment sessions. 

“I walked in, and I was like, ‘Wow, this is perfect,’” Schulin recounted. “This is exactly the space that I felt the kids needed to be able to feel at home, or to be able to feel comfortable about being in the program. So, I was very happy with the space that we’ve created here, and I think it’s really going to be awesome up here.” 

A large mural made of hundreds of “drips” covers the walls of the clubhouse space, with the words “every drip tells a story” painted above them.

“Every drip down the wall should sort of tell a story or indicate a story of one of the teens that is going through the program,” Schulin said. “Some drips are long and go all the way to the floor, some drips are crooked and take some twists and turns, and some drips are very short. It’s important to understand that some teens take some turns, and not every road is the same.”

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The large warehouse-sized space also allows for teenagers to continue in-person treatment, as it allows teenagers and staff to maintain social distancing during their sessions.

“For most teens that are struggling, a huge element of this is the family dynamic,” Schulin said. “So when COVID came in, and the kids had to be sort of staying at home all the time, and be isolated from their friends and the support system that they usually have, and only be with parents, that has a huge effect on the family system.”

In addition to the welcoming environment created at their facility, Schulin and his staff take the teenagers in the program out on trips to places like Big Bear and Catalina Island.

“I think nature has an amazing way of putting people together and creating community,” Schulin said. “Some kids that come into a program like this, they haven’t felt for a long period of time that life is good. So when you see that transformation out of that zone, where they start actually engaging and wanting to be part of life and wanting to be part of a community and to have friends again, that is wonderful to watch.”

Unlike many other Intensive Outpatient Programs (IOP’s), Insight Treatment lets families use their insurance to pay for the treatment, with the exception of Medi-Cal.

“We really believe that there’s a lot of treatment programs that are sort of focusing on the wealthy communities and providing great services for them, but Insight wants to make sure that there’s also options for the working class community,” Schulin said. “People can use their insurance as payment, and don’t necessarily have to have a lot of money banked away to be able to afford treatment.”

In order to help celebrate their grand opening, Insight officials are scheduled to host an open house on Friday, Aug. 28, starting at 3 p.m. at their new facility, located at 26330 Diamond Place, Unit 130.

“We’ll have some popcorn and just a night for everybody to get together and talk about mental health in teens and connect with the community,” Schulin said. “It’s for parents, and it’s for kids, and it’s for professionals, therapists and psychiatrists and counselors in the community.”

For more information, call (888) 295-9995, or visit their website here.

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