Trillium Family Services Receives $500,000 Grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Portland, Ore. -- Trillium Family Services, Oregon’s largest independent, nonprofit provider of mental health services to children and adolescents, today announced the receipt of a $500,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This grant has been earmarked to help finance a sub-acute psychiatric residential cottage on Trillium’s Children’s Farm Home Campus.

 The Children’s Farm Home, located on 300 acres in Corvallis, was initially built as a facility for homeless and neglected children in 1925. Today, the Children’s Farm Home campus provides treatment to 200 children suffering from severe mental health disorders including schizophrenia, BI-polar disorders, suicidal ideation, anxiety and depression, which are the result of genetics, extreme neglect and in some instances, sexual abuse.

 In Oregon there are 110,000 children who are severely affected with mental health disorders; 28,000 are considered to be in need of acute emergency services and only 30 percent of those actually receive care.  In the state of Oregon, the demand for intensive, sub-acute services far exceeds available resources, especially for those children and adolescents ages 10-17.

 Recognizing the state’s need for services and the consequences our children face without appropriate care, Trillium Family Services began a $10 million capital campaign to renovate its Children’s Farm Home Campus. The renovation not only includes building a new sub-acute psychiatric residential cottage, but also renovating two cottages to create psychiatric stabilization centers.

 This grant was given through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Pacific Northwest Giving program, which supports capital campaigns and nonprofit organizations throughout Washington and Oregon that assist vulnerable children and families.

Trillium Family Services is Oregon’s largest independent, nonprofit provider of mental health services to children and adolescents. Comprised of three nonprofit agencies: Parry Center for Children, Waverly Children's Home and the Children’s Farm Home, Trillium Family Services provides a full array of mental health services for children and adolescents, from residential to supported out-patient programs.  Last year, TFS provided services to 1,675 children and adolescents that came from every county in Oregon.

On the Internet:
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, www.gatesfoundation.org
Trillium Family Services, www.trilliumfamily.org