Your Partner in Teen Mental Health

We’re not a first-stop intervention. By the time a teen reaches us, there’s typically a care history — outpatient therapy, medication management, sometimes IOP or PHP — and a recognition from you and the family that the current level of support isn’t holding. That’s the gap we’re built to fill, temporarily and intentionally, so that the longer arc of care can continue.

We’re a subacute setting. In the interest of transparency — and your time — Muir Wood is generally not the right fit when:

• A teen requires formal medical detox with 24/7 nursing supervision. We can support some medication-assisted treatment orally, including Suboxone.
• There is an active gang affiliation, a primary conduct disorder presentation, or purposeful behavioral disruption that would compromise the safety of the therapeutic community.

That said, clinical fit isn’t always clear from a description. We’d rather have the conversation than have you rule out a client who might be appropriate. Call us.

The frustration we hear most from referring professionals — therapists, IOP teams, social workers, school counselors — isn’t about clinical quality. It’s about what happens to the relationship after the referral. A client gets placed. Communication stops. Medications change without notice. By the time the teen steps down, the therapeutic relationship has frayed and the handoff is harder than it needed to be.

We’ve built our model specifically to prevent that. Our commitment to referring providers is straightforward:. The work you’ve done with them belongs to the broader arc of their care, and our job is to support it — not redirect it.

From the First Call

Our outreach team is available for clinical consultation before any referral decision is made. If you’re thinking through a client and want to talk through fit, appropriate level of care, or what to tell the family, that’s a conversation we’d like to have with you. We respond quickly because we know that when acuity is rising, timing matters.

During Treatment

From the day of admission, we coordinate with referring providers who want to stay involved. That means proactive communication, shared clinical context, and a clear commitment not to make changes — to medications, referrals, or clinical direction — that might undermine the work you’ve already built without discussing with you directly. Your relationship with your client is something we actively protect.

Toward Discharge

Step-down planning begins early in treatment — not in the final week. We coordinate transitions collaboratively, with advance notice as readiness for step-down approaches, shared clinical insights to inform next steps, and warm handoffs to IOP, PHP, outpatient, or school-based support. Post-discharge referrals are not made without your awareness or against your existing relationship with the client.

Continuum of Care

We believe strong outcomes depend on continuity and collaboration. From admission through discharge, we coordinate closely with your client’s existing providers and aftercare programs — whether that’s our own IOP or another trusted outpatient partner. Our team stays in regular communication with the broader care network to support timely transitions, shared understanding, and a clear path forward.

What You Can Expect From Us

• Proactive communication throughout your client’s stay — not just at intake and discharge
• Early notice as readiness for step-down approaches, so you can prepare
• A clear, coordinated handoff with relevant clinical context and family orientation
• Warm transitions that support families and reduce disruption

A shared commitment to continuity — your work with this client doesn’t stop when they come to us

An Integrated Multidisciplinary Team

Every teen at Muir Wood is supported by a coordinated team that meets daily: board-certified adolescent psychiatrists, licensed therapists, nurses, recovery counselors, and academic staff. Clinical decisions are made collectively, in real time, with full awareness of each teen’s presentation across every part of their day — not in siloed sessions.

Our small caseload model means clinicians genuinely know the teens they’re working with. Recovery doesn’t happen only in scheduled hours. Our team is present in the spaces between.

Evidence-Based, Trauma-Informed from the Ground Up

Our clinical approach draws on CBT, DBT, and a range of trauma-informed modalities. More fundamentally, we operate from the premise that all behaviors exist for a reason. What presents as defiance, shutdown, or escalation is understood as an adaptive response — often to pain, instability, or unmet developmental need. That lens shapes how every member of our team engages with each teen, clinical and non-clinical alike.

Family systems work is woven throughout treatment — not added at discharge. We are in regular contact with caregivers from the first week, because the family is part of the clinical picture.

On Co-Occurring Disorders

The industry has long divided mental health and substance use into separate treatment tracks. We don’t. Most adolescents presenting at this level of acuity aren’t struggling with one thing — their substance use, self-harm, or dysregulation is typically rooted in underlying mental health disturbance. We believe treating both as expressions of the same picture is more clinically accurate, and it produces better outcomes.

Our integrated model means both are treated together, by the same team, without internal handoffs.

Levels of Care

• Residential Treatment (RTC): 24/7 structured therapeutic environment across 17 campuses in three California regions
• Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP): Structured programming for step-down or direct admission, offered in Central California, with one center in Petaluma and the other in Clovis.

We operate across three regions in California, with gender-separate campuses set in natural, home-like environments.