What is the deal with NIBH?

[Anonymous]

My little cousin was sent to RMA, and after maybe a year there he got in a fight and was sent to that place called NIBH that a few people have been posting about lately. My family would never talk about the place, nor would they talk about RMA much. I was under the impression that because it was just called 'North Idaho Behavioral Health' that it was simply another kind of Ascent. Now I'm seeing things like "mental hospital" and hearing some particularly scary stuff. He finally got out of there when the money ran out, his parents never had him go back to RMA, and no one has heard from the kid since, other than a postcard I got from him 6 months ago.

Can someone tell me about that place? What the fuck goes on there? It seems like it pushed a good kid right over the edge, and I'm guessing it's happened many times before. Since there's no way to contact the only kid I know who got sent there, maybe you guys could tell me what NIBH's deal is. I'd really appreciate it.

[Roy]

First let me say I agree with you wholeheartedly.

NIBH or North Idaho Behavioral Health was once a mental hospital. Now it is a brainwashing center set up by a woman who was a former CEDU Staff member who whent back to school to ge a worthless University Of Idaho degree in Counseling and Himan Services.

She went to work at NIBH while in ther masters program and quickly rose to the head of the Adolescent Treatment Center of the hospital.

She set the hospital up on the model of Rocky Mountain Academy - The second worst of the CEDU schools - BCA being the worst. This is why kids are deiven Crazy. Now Dr Ulrich is in charge of psychiatric servises at CEDU and is  the VP of NIBH and receives referrals for his private practice from both - What a recket he has?

He drugs the kids at the 5 North Idaho CEDU cult schools so they can handle the abuse without complaining. When they are driven crazy he gets big money for really fucking them up at NIBH

That is the sad answer to your question. I used to  collaborate with Dr Ulrich, Cedu, NIBH and Ulrich's private practice - Given the bad press of recent, this would be agood time for a lawsuit.

[Anonymous]

What "Roy" says is simply not true. NIBH is an adolescent psychiatric center with an acute, medical residential, and a social residential unit.  The staff there is very good. They have an all RN staff including techs which all have four year degrees and are very professional and caring.  

Dr. Ullrich and his two therapists, who also see their kids at the Idaho schools, are the best in the country.  The therapists at the schools aren't even liscenced.  They practice under the umbrella of the one liscenced pHD, at least at Boulder Creek.  Dr. Ullrich's therapists are fully liscenced and credentialed.  

Their mission is not to drug the kids as the "anonymous" former therapist alleges.  There are kids with clinical issues at the Idaho schools who need meds at least for now. Many of the kids at the Idaho schools have organic mental health issues, such as bipolar disorders, and everyone knows that that particular illness requires meds forever, unfortunately.

 The kids are sent to NIBH for very good reasons, such as being unsafe to themselves and others, etc., and the staff at NIBH does wonderful work in turning the kids around.  I have personally experienced the clinical skills of Ullrich, et al. for quite some time.  They are the real thing.

So as far as the "therapy" given by the therapists on staff at BCA and RMA, I'll be the first one to agree that they are not qualified.  You see real therapy when Linda Daggy, one of the liscenced therapists, comes to the campus to see her kids and work with the staff to help them understand how best to work with the kids. The staff are receptive to the suggestions of both Linda Daggy and Dr. Ullrich.

Hope that helps to answer your question.  Your cousin probably needed to be there and probably got the help he needs.  There is no magical cure, however, for many kids, even with a behavioral/medication combination.

[Anonymous]

I'll have you know that one of those therapists that didn't have a "license" was by far the best person I met while at those schools. Unfortunately, MR's disagreement with cedu and bca's principles and methods led to his termination.

I have no doubt that the men and women working on the three levels at NIBH are more than qualified to work at their positions, and anyone that would work with children and a place like that is likely to have a pretty good heart and be in it for the right reasons. However, the connection between NIBH and those 3 schools is where I get weary.

I think it's fine to have kids who need to be in that place being treated there. It's a respectable institution that is utilized by not just cedu, but is referred to many of the youth living in North Idaho. I think it's heinous for scum like Ulrich to use such an easy pool that is provided by BCA, RMA, NWA, and the fragile, easily influenced parents that put their kids there to fuel his business.

I know a few cedu kids who needed a little dose of the hospital to get them back on track. I know even more that were devastated by the experience.

[Anonymous]

Thank God that the Idaho schools DO have the connection with the NW Psych people, because the clinical issues of the kids way outweigh the skillset of the therapists on campus.  I know of many kids whose lives were saved by Daggy, Stanton and Ullrich.  

As far as MR goes, yes, I heard he was liked by some.  When he left, he wrote the parent board the most outrageous letter and sounded like a paranoid schizophrenic, very unstable.  His rantings and ravings totally discredited him in the eyes of the parents.  

For you to describe the affiliation between Ullrich and the Idaho schools as heinous is perplexing. Again, I thank God for them.

[Anonymous]

It's a double-edged sword. Those "life-saving" characters that you speak so highly of rely very heavily on reports made by those under-qualified program staff members that you seem to loathe so much.

If decisions need to be made that outweigh the abilities of cedu staff, then they should be made by an outside clinician who is very familiar and acquainted with how those schools work. Not by someone who is on the inside like Ulrich and is going to benefit in multiple financial aspects from the decisions he makes. I understand that any doctor is going to be driven by a financial standpoint, but in Ulrich's case it just seems to be even more so.

As for MR, I'm still friends with him today. He was the kind of guy that could help you in so many ways if you connected. If not, well, there were plenty of other clinicians there, and it was never a problem to request to switch...I'm still friends with the man today.

[If u want to know..then a]

Ok, So I don't understand why everyone is patting Dr. Ullrich on the back.  I was at BCA and during your stay, it is in the "rules" that children are only required to have 1 medical evalution to see if meds are needed.  Unless of course the student requested more, or if something traumatic changed making the staff and nursing folks feel that another is necessary.  I was personally given 3 evalutions for no reason.  I was NEVER out of control like someone who needed meds, they couldn't even diagnose me with the ever so common ADD, or ADHD.  The reason they gave my mother for continuing to bring me back was because I was the ONLY student at BCA with no record of ever needed or being on medication and they didn't feel that was accurate.  So within these interviews, they were looking for the smallest thing to pin on me so be able to dope me up.  I watched countless females out of my dorm go to appointments and come back with prescriptions for lithium, and various other medications making their weight uncontrollable, and their appetite extremely high.  I looked at the pictures of them before they were sent to BCA and you couldn't believe they were the same people.  Folks that never wanted to commit suicide before BCA, were going on medication and that was all they could think of.  Granted, this didn't happen with all the people on medication and SOME of the people who were diagnosed correctly and given the right things excelled with it.  To be licensed and not diagnose someone correctly is not the most comforting thing.  The fact is, Dr. Ullrich BEGGED my mother to give him the ok, and when she said no, he upped the price of the intial visit! (3 times)...
As far as NIBH goes, never been there!

[Anonymous]

thank god for ulrich?!? stop yourself for a second! did you see the way some of the kids walked around at CEDU? halfway lifeless, so drugged on ulrich's prescriptions that they became almost completely incapable of expressing some of the most vital emotions? it was disgusting. i saw good and happy kids so pumped full of lithium and resparitol and whatever other meds that they turned into expressionless bags. kids whose parents had them so loaded up on antidepressants and mood stabilizers that when they left and were on their own (and definitely couldnt afford those drugs anymore) they snapped. it was like they werent even real anymore.

[Anonymous]

I will give you that.  The kids do seem to be overmedicated.  I will also tell you that they are the most troubled kids as well.  The right dose is probably pretty tricky to adjust, and the nursing staff is quite vigilant in communicating to Ullrich that a change is in order.  

It is not a perfect situation, since drastic med changes cannot be made on campus.  That is why some kids are shipped off to NIBH, where they can observe the kids and adjust their meds accordingly.  Would I like my son on NO MEDS?  You bet.  I am hopeful that he can be off meds in the near future.

[Anonymous]

Oh, and by the way, I do not loathe the therapists.  I think they are by and large an inexperienced, young group of professionals who are very well intentioned.  But they are way out of their league with this dynamic of clinical issues with the kids.

[Anonymous]

most of what you said is true the place is hell its a very strict lockdown and they do drug up the kids there so they wont flip out but the staff there well at least mostn of them are realy chill but i cuondnt stand it there i hate being cuoped up i also gained forty puonds while i was there and i am horribly self conses i never recomend kids that go there its hell

[Anonymous]

I know it's hell.  I'm not advocating it as party central or a place to go to chill.  It is actually quite scary as you say.

I hope you are doing okay now.

[Anonymous]

It seems that a lot of people are looking at nibh as black or white. I'll be the first to say that yes, some kids need that place. They need something. But you're right, it's a tricky process, and I think the people involved at cedu are really making a mess of it. NIBH is a good place to make med adjustments, even though I disapprove of meds. I think it's a horrible place to stick a kid because cedu leads him to snap and he socks a kid in the dining hall. I think nibh is overused as an easy place to put a kid who breaks the rules. Isn't that what ascent was for?

[Anonymous]

I appreciate your thoughts about the kids being pushed sometimes to snap, and then sent away to NIBH for breaking the violence agreement.  But why blame CEDU for it?  You have a population of kids who were not making it at home thrown together.  Some real bullies, but for the most part, a "soft" group of kids at BCA. (Not the case back in 01 and 02)

And how can you say that you don't believe in meds? It is a proven fact that bipolars must take meds in order to stabilize their manic and depressive phases.  Do you know the rate of suicide among bipolars who go off meds?  Anxiety disorders are real as well as depression.  The combination of cognitive/behavioral/medication approach has been proven to be effective in the most recent medical journals.

Ascent IS being used for OOA behavior. They are now sending kids to Ascent for three days, etc., depending on the circumstances.  The only kids who are being sent to NIBH are the ones who need to be there.

[Anonymous]

this is to the anonymous poster who said that people with bipolar disorderwill always need medication,  that is simply not true, i was diagnosed with it, although i do think that it was a misdiagnoses, but if it is true, that i do have bipolar i do not need medication, i have been off of ALL medication since last march and i am doing well.  i have my ups and downs, as does every high school student does. but my art, my friends, and the thought of the great places my life is going (art school and then on to being a professional artist as well as a high school art teacher)  helps pull me through the rough patches.

on the subject of medication, i think that medication has made my life far worse than it ever would have been had my parents decided not to put me on ritalin in the first grade.  once i was on ritalin they were open to any and all suggestions about other medication for what ever problems that my parents couldnt deal with becuase they never took the time to be parents, they were always to busy with their careers and praising my older sister for her wonderful accomplishments.  it seemed as if my father only had time to sign checks that paid for my prescriptions for who knows what psych med i was on at the time.  i took ritalin for 7 and a half years only to find out in 7th grade that i never needed it.  i have so many medication horror stories, (like getting sent to a psych hospital for a month and a half becuase the doctor prescribed a medication that reacted with something else i was taking and caused me to flip, you would think taht i doctor with any sort of medication kowledge would know what medications mixed and created horrible disasters)   it would shock most people what i have been through as a result of medication.. psuch medication is something,that is my choice not to put in my body

i was at Cedu middle school, it wasnt all bad, most of the people taht worked there were awesome, there was way to much medicating of kids.  i was on lithium, clonodine (sp?), zyprexa and ritalin, all at the same time.  it was horrible, i felt like a zombie, i didnt have much of a personality, plus i gained 30 pounds in the first 3 months or so that i was on lithium.  allthough i had taken all of the medication before cedu, for the first 6 months or so, they made no attempt to get me off any unnescesary medication.