Behavioral Healthcare, Inc. - "Your doorway to Choice, Hope and Recovery"

Celebrate Meridian’s Recovery Center Housewarming & Ribbon Cutting

On Tuesday, October 26th from 4:30-6:30pm Meridian Behavioral Healthcare, Inc. will hold a Housewarming & Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at the Boy’s Recovery Center at 439 SW Michigan Street, Lake City, FL. Please join other community stakeholders to help celebrate newly renovated facility, with representatives from the Lake City/Columbia County Chamber of Commerce on hand to officially cut the ribbon at 4:45pm. For more information, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Housewarming gift registries at Target and Walmart. For donation inquiries, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Recovery Center’s Story:
Our youth are the future of our community; they deserve to receive the highest quality of care in a setting that is designed with them in mind.

To meet the demand for this level of care Meridian operates the Boys Recovery Center, a 16-bed Residential Treatment Program treating male adolescents with substance abuse diagnoses. Children have not only substance abuse issues, but also have a history of family, legal, physical/sexual abuse, and mental health issues. More than ninety percent of the boys who participate in the program are court ordered to attend. Typically, they have had a parole violation and this is the last opportunity to avoid a juvenile detention center. Many of the boys already have a long history of using drugs and/or alcohol.

The Recovery Center offers counseling and supportive services, education, medical service and a structured environment that stresses developing healthy coping and problem-solving skills to deal with family or personal life problems, increasing past discharge resiliency. The program also houses an on-site school accredited by the Columbia County School Board and is staffed by a full time, state certified teacher who provides elementary and high school course instruction to residents. Daily physical education and recreation supplement academic and treatment services. The program is able to service up to 16 boys at a time, but with so much demand, the census rarely drops below 16 for long.

The program’s objective is to return the client to the community and home with an awareness of problems and risk involved in continued substance abuse. Currently, the boys in the program live for six months or more in a space that is sparse at best. It is clean and safe, but this is only a place that they eat, sleep and hang out. Regardless of their issues with mental illness and substance abuse, all teenage boys face a period of instability and growth that are not easy. Without a quiet place to get away from others whom you disagree with, a place to lounge and hang out, or a recreation area to “let off some steam,” it can be difficult to focus on the priorities that are integral to successfully completing the program.

In order to make the program more successful, we aim to create a comfortable, healing atmosphere, transforming the facility into a homelike space designed with youth in mind. Through a massive renovation project, existing office space has been transformed to create a comfortable homelike atmosphere. Earlier this year, Meridian received a sizable Tipping Points Grant from the Capital City Bank Group Foundation, which helped put this renovation in motion. To continue the vision of a nurturing, homelike environment for these children to thrive, we are moving beyond the bricks and mortar and are now focusing on the items that will fill the space with Choice, Hope and Recovery.

Meridian Behavioral Healthcare, Inc. is a private, not-for-profit, charitable organization providing and North Central Florida’s leading safety-net provider for people who experience mental illnesses, addictions and related social challenges.