Southwest Guidance Center

Information may not be reliable

The Southwest Guidance Center's primary mission is to meet the mental health needs of all residents of Haskell, Meade, Seward and Stevens Counties. To this end, the Center is licensed by the State of Kansas and mandated by state law to develop and provide those components of education, prevention, and treatment which will allow residents of the Center's service area to receive care in the least restrictive, and when possible, the least costly setting possible. This care will be provided in such a way as to respect the personal dignity and rights of each individual.

The Center's service components will be made available to every resident of the Center's service area regardless of an individual's race, color, religion, age, sex, or place of national origin. While the Center, for both financial and clinical reasons, does charge a fee for services rendered and may deny service because of a person's unwillingness to pay an agreed upon fee, the Center will not deny a resident of service because of his or her inability to pay.

Persons who present themselves as experiencing a mental health emergency are never denied service for any reason.
Beliefs and Values

Must be responsive to as many of the behavioral health care needs of the residents of its service area as is programmatically and financially possible.

Must be consumer-oriented and must be dependent upon the satisfaction of the clients, referral sources, funding sources, and the community as a whole.

Must develop and present services in an evolutionary manner; that is, the Center must be proactive in the development of new services within the parameters of its basic mission in response to the mental health needs of the community in general and the center's clientele in particular.

Must be aware that the needs of the community are learned from involvement in the community. Staff involvement in community activities is valued.

Affirms that each client's dignity and right to self-determination in the therapeutic process must be respected.

Acknowledges that clinical and support staff must be of the highest quality possible, and that every effort must be made to retain quality staff as long as possible.

Recognizes that a team spirit and sense of cooperation among clinical and support staff must pervade all of the Center's activities. The focus of this team cooperation must always be the provision of the highest quality service to the Center's clients.

Recognizes that community perceptions of our agency are more powerful than what the Center says it is. Staff, at all times, are to promote a positive community awareness of the Center's service delivery system.

Recognizes that networking with other providers both local and statewide is crucial to the delivery of effective, efficient, behavioral health care services to consumers.

Affirms that the Center must provide as much of a continuum of mental health services as possible within the Center's own service delivery system.

Affirms that the Center must strive to collect as much revenue as possible to sustain both service delivery and development, always mindful that the Center will never deny any resident of its service area the right to appropriate mental health services regardless of that resident's ability to pay.