Youth Dynamics, a children’s mental health agency, serves 46 of Montana’s 56 counties and on Wednesday, stakeholders and community members broke ground at the new building in Boulder.
The Youth Dynamics Boulder location will transition some of their group homes into staff housing and parent visitation space.
The new building will become housing for eight children in which each child gets their own room. They hope to have the building complete by early July.
“The expansion of this new space is gonna allow us to really align with our model of care which is to provide individualized care for each kid that we serve,” says Clinical Director of Residential Services for Youth Dynamics, Jordan Evertz.
According to a report from 2022 from the American Psychological Association, two years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, mental illness and the demand for psychological services among children hit all-time highs.
Evertz has seen the need for services like Youth Dynamics recently increase.
“The need for mental health services in Montana for kids has skyrocketed. I feel like it’s always been there but then the pandemic just really shined the light on it that maybe brought it to the surface a little bit more,” says Evertz.
Kyle Treadway — who is about to graduate from the Youth Dynamics program - says this program has helped give him the skills to better understand himself and his emotions so he can be the best version of himself.
“Like it makes me understand some of my like some of my understandings of what I need to change and what do I need to do in life, and like, what do I need to accomplish to do stuff like that,” says Treadway.
