Navos provides mental health services to clients in King County. Their services focus on recovery and wellness, and on the strengths of individuals with mental illness.
Proven Success
Navos’ Early Childhood Mental Health Program helps to break cycles of abuse and neglect; the program helps young children and their parents/caregivers to develop secure and nurturing attachments, trains adults on how to best care for and promote the healthy development of their children, and provides early intervention for children with emotional and mental health issues. Older youth who have been removed from their family or foster home because of abuse, neglect or unsafe or violent behavior receive intensive residential treatment at our Ruth Dykeman Children’s Center campus.
Use of Best Practices
Their work is guided by the belief that recovery is possible. Navos is a leader in the national movement to transform mental health care from a top-down treatment approach to a revolutionary model based on a true partnership with mental health consumers. Those receiving services at Navos are supported by professionals and peers who understand that downward spirals can be interrupted and reversed at any age; that trauma and loneliness are important components of mental health and substance use conditions; and that creating community is as important to building resilience and achieving recovery as therapy and medication. The people they serve draw upon their own strengths and resilience, and with Navos’ support, they work to recover from the challenges of their psychiatric symptoms.
With a primary care clinic located on-site at Navos Mental Health and Wellness Center in Burien, Navos will serve as a national model for providing people with mental illness with a health care home where they can receive primary health care, mental health treatment, health education, chemical dependency services, and a range of other services that support each individual’s recovery.
Sustainability
Navos’ new campus in Burien, currently under construction, is bringing together supportive housing, a community center with space for employment services and our client-run café and catering kitchen, an outpatient mental health center, and a primary care clinic.
Navos’ services are supported through a mix of public and private funding which helps Navos to provide a broad range of services to people in challenging circumstances. State and county reimbursements have decreased, affecting their ability to provide programs and services to their most vulnerable clients. At the same time, they are being asked by public entities to expand their services to make up for publicly-funded programs that have been cut back or eliminated. Private funding is needed to supplement public dollars for mental health care.
Navos merged with Seattle Children’s Home in July 2012. All of Seattle Children’s Home’s programs will continue in the new entity.
Collaboration
As the lead agency for the Navos Consortium, Navos provides critical administrative and technical services for 18 other mental health providers and family services agencies throughout King County. This allows these smaller agencies to provide mental health services to more than 3,000 low-income children and adults each year. The 9,000 people helped every year by Navos and its Consortium partners represent one-fifth of all people, and more than one-third of all youth, seen in King County’s publicly-funded mental health system.
Grant History with The Seattle Foundation:
Grants Awarded through The Seattle Foundation Grantmaking Program:
| Date | Amount | | Purpose |
|---|
| 12/10/2012 |
$20,000.00 |  | provide general operating support. | | 12/10/2011 |
$30,000.00 | | support general operating expenses. | | 12/11/2010 |
$50,000.00 | | support construction of the Child & Family area in Navos Mental Health and Wellness Center. | | 12/10/2010 |
$35,000.00 | | support general operating expenses. | | 6/26/2008 |
$60,000.00 | | support construction of the Burien Heights Residences and general operating expenses. | | 3/16/2005 |
$20,000.00 | | support renovation and the purchase of equipment for a commercial kitchen and cafe. |
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