About Sorrel Leaf Healing Center
Humboldt youth are suffering from significant mental health challenges, and for years we have had no facilities within hundreds of miles to help them when they reach the point of a crisis or suicide attempt. Sorrel Leaf Healing Center, 501(c)(3), in cooperation with the Humboldt County Department of Mental Health, has been granted funds from the California Health Facilities Financing Authority to create a 12-bed Crisis Residential Treatment Center for youth in Humboldt and the surrounding Northern California counties, as well as a Mobile Crisis Response team to address crises in youth before they require inpatient care.
​
Sorrel Leaf's comprehensive system of care will serve the needs of children and adolescents ages 7 to 18, offering transformative, compassionate, evidence-based and trauma-informed care for young people experiencing a mental health crisis.
​
Our Mobile Response team will work anywhere in the community to de-escalate crises through timely and thorough mental health assessment and diagnosis, as well as the development of an appropriate safety and care plan in coordination with the child and their caregivers. Each child will receive individualized psychiatric and therapeutic interventions with the goal of minimizing further trauma and keeping them safely in their homes whenever possible, with appropriate follow-up referrals and case management in place.
​
For children whose needs go beyond mobile intervention and stabilization, we will offer a 10-30 day residential stay at our farm-based Crisis Residential Treatment facility, focussed on embodying wholeness and meaning in the young person’s life. In addition to therapeutic care and activities, Residents will be exposed to art, music, farming, cooking and meaningful community.
​
Our therapeutic approach is rooted in a mindfulness model that focuses on embodied healing and connection to self, each other and the human and natural environments. Residents will leave with new and better tools for emotional regulation and distress tolerance. Some of the modalities we will utilize include dialectical and cognitive behavior therapies, family and group therapy, and somatic/experiential modalities including yoga, music, movement and breathwork, in addition to life skills training, sleep and diet optimization. Through a collaboration with UCSF Benioff’s Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, pediatric psychiatrists will oversee diagnosis and, when indicated, the medical management of mental health disorders. Our aftercare clinic will continue the Center’s healing work over 6-12 months following discharge to prevent relapse and complete the course of therapy.
Located off Indianola Road in Eureka on a working farm that will produce much of the plant-based diet for our facility, our Residents will benefit from daily interactions with plants, farm animals and nature. The peaceful grounds include a 2 acre wetland pond and acres of lush pasture and forest.
​
