The holiday season often brings with it a myriad of emotions. For many, it’s a joyful time to connect with loved ones. For others it may be lonely and spending it in the hospital can be particularly difficult. Each year, the OSH Volunteer Services team helps make the holidays special for every patient through the Caring Tree gift donation program. This year, more than 700  gifts were donated and many volunteers – including Oregon’s First Lady Aimee Kotek-Wilson – helped wrap gifts. Thank you to all who contributed gifts and time to make a positive difference in the lives of patients who are away from their family, friends and traditions. Each gift is more than the content it holds; it represents a patient being seen and thought about by someone in our community.

This edition of Recovery Times features stories of community and support. For example, you’ll read about how our partnership with a Lane County nonprofit empowers OSH veterans and how a life skills class on cooking better prepares patients for life in and out of the kitchen. There’s also a story about a staff member who began his career at OSH 44 years ago as a housekeeper and found his passion as a nurse.

It’s been a busy year at OSH, and we’re ending 2024 with good news – the hospital has maintained its accreditation with The Joint Commission and regained full compliance with the Conditions of Participation for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. These achievements represent a recognition of the quality care and safe environment we provide for patients.

As we move into the new year, we bring with us our dedication and responsibility to ensure OSH is a place of healing, hope, recovery and safety for all. 

The call to serve remains strong for veterans at Oregon State Hospital – and not just for those who work there.  

For the past several years, patients who served our country in the Armed Forces have volunteered at Camp Alma, a place where veterans experiencing challenges like houselessness and addiction receive housing and support as they work to rebuild their lives. OSH patients have helped make the camp feel more like a community through their work on small construction and painting projects, landscaping, and even propagating plants that eventually end up as food in the camp kitchen.  

But patients’ visits provide something much deeper for them and the veterans who are residents at Camp Alma – healing.  

“The environment there is veteran-heavy and being there, I felt understood and loved,” said Michael Whitney (pictured above, right), a U.S. Navy veteran, who recently visited Camp Alma for the first time. “There’s an emotional, even physiological connection there because you’re around people who have experienced similar pain, similar joy in the service of country. You’ve taken the same oath. I was able to make connections there with other veterans and that were especially healing and provided a level of normalcy that I do not get at the hospital.” 

Surrounded by 360-degree views of forests and hills in rural Lane County and no cell phone reception, relaxation is the default setting at Camp Alma. In 2016 Veterans Legacy started reviving the site which had previously been a minimum-security camp run by Lane County and closed for eight years. Currently, 13 veterans are receiving support at the camp. Some residents may be referred by Veterans Court or other social service agencies. When residents arrive, they receive two dog tags with their name and date they arrived at camp. When they leave, they take one tag with them and the other is displayed on a wall of distinction – a reminder that they’re always also a part of Camp Alma, Gartley said.  

While at Camp Alma, community residents are assigned a peer mentor, attend support groups and receive help with accessing benefits and community support to find permanent housing through partnerships with social service agencies. Most residents are there about six months.  

Creating community, connections 

“I didn’t realize how much it would affect me. For me, the visit was emotional because it was the first time I had been outside a facility after going to jail and getting GEI,” he said. “I got drenched in kindness and there was even a level of spirituality going on there being in nature. As a combat veteran, I was able to have conversations with other veterans and not feel like they wouldn’t understand.” 

Whitney said he’d like to see more veterans have the opportunity to visit the camp as part of their therapeutic treatment and more veteran-specific support available at the hospital. At OSH, clinicians offer patients a range of individual therapy services, including treatment for PTSD. Group therapies range from music, garden and art therapy to specialized topics like learning coping skills. More recently, a new anger and irritability management support group (AIMS) for veterans began meeting on the Junction City campus.  

During his recent visit to Camp Alma, Whitney met veterans like Warren Colbert who found his way to Camp Alma in 2022.  

“I have 32 years in the Army, and then I had a really bad night,” Colbert said.  

Camp Alma helped Colbert get back on his feet, and he now works at the camp as a peer mentor and camp coordinator. In his role, he also does street outreach to let houseless veterans know about the opportunities at Camp Alma. He said he has witnessed the positive impact of the camp’s partnership with the hospital.  

For many people, the kitchen is the center of the home and where lessons – cooking and otherwise are learned. It’s the same in the Life Skills kitchens used by OSH occupational therapists and who turn small group cooking classes into therapeutic opportunities to teach and reinforce skills patients need to be successful in and out of the kitchen.

“When patients return to the community, we want them to be able to take care of themselves. We want them to be able to make simple, cost-effective nutritious meals, and we have to prepare patients for that,” said Norma Kelleher, an OSH occupational therapist who facilities one of the small group cooking classes. “The classes are also an engagement tool to promote safe behavior and how to get along with their peers and cooperate together.”

Clinicians like occupational therapists, recreation therapists, dieticians and treatment services nurses all use the Life Skills kitchens to thoughtfully individualize cooking interventions to support each patient’s unique strengths, skills and recovery goals, explained Jacqueline Fullerton, OSH Associate Director of Occupational and Physical Therapy.

“Cooking activities are used both as a means to promote engagement in skill-building therapeutic activities and as an end to promote increased independence in activities of daily living that will provide patients with the ability to take care of their physical health and wellbeing when they leave the hospital,” Fullerton said.

During one of Kelleher’s more recent classes, patients worked together to cook a pumpkin curry served over rice.  

When one patient said the dish needed more curry, Kelleher suggested, “Shall we ask the others?” The open question was a gentle reminder that the class is not only an effort of collaboration, but when it comes to seasoning, it’s also one of compromise.

Kelleher polls the class routinely for feedback on future menus which are also developed with OSH dietician guidelines to ensure the recipes are nutritiously balanced. Curries have been a favorite lately, as well as Tex-Mex dishes.

“This is something they look forward to,” Kelleher said after the class. “Being institutionalized is really hard. People are taken away from so much. They’re taken away from family and they’re also taken away from choice. The kitchen does a good job here, but sometimes people want to be able to make the food that they like. I think patients really appreciate the normalcy of being able to cut up food and put it into a pan and cook it. It’s something they look forward to. For some patients, it’s the only thing they’ll participate in, so it helps to keep people motivated.”

From housekeeping to program nurse manager and numerous patient caregiving roles in between, Kirk Buckley has worked in nearly every program at Oregon State Hospital (OSH).  

Currently, Buckley (pictured left) is the longest-serving OSH employee and celebrated 43 years of service in August. He’ll retire in July 1– just two months shy of 44 years at the state hospital. Through it all, he said two things have remained constant – commitment to patient care and unfortunately, the negative assumptions society holds about mental illness.  ​ 

“I think people’s perception of mental illness is people on the side of the road living in tents or who have nothing. You have to understand this reaches and affects everyone,” he said. “I’ve worked with people who are songwriters, who wrote books, worked for governors. These were people who had lives as productive citizens.”    

Buckley has witnessed the hospital through five decades of changes and worked in every program offered in its history.  

“I really grew up here. The hospital offered me a lot in the sense of education,” said Buckley, who received certifications as a nurse assistant (CNA) and medical assistant (CMA) through former OSH programs.   

When he decided to advance his nursing career, he worked night shifts to earn his nursing degree in the early 1990s. He held numerous nursing and nursing supervisor positions, including staff RN, charge RN, mental health supervising RN, and for the past six years has served as a program nurse manager where he supports nurse managers who work directly with patients and provides mentorship to nursing staff. 

For nurses who may be interested in a career at OSH, Buckley encourages curiosity, a lack of ego and the ability to strike a balance between the stressful environment here and your home life.  

“In this business we are the tool of our trade. We must remain sharp, engaged, alert and sensitive,” he said. “It’s really for someone who wants to be a good detective and offer good nursing because as a psych nurse, you really have to be a detective. Aside from a diagnosis, you have to ask, ‘what’s presenting right here in front of me?’ You need to look at behavior and ask questions about what may be causing the behavior beside the diagnosis and read through the lines and be that detective.”  

His career has also been about teamwork, he said.  

“You’re not on an island. You have support above and below you,” he said. “Our job is to engage with a patient and for them to see something in us that they can put their trust in. We have to have this guarded, detached, yet engaged therapeutic ‘somehowness.’ I don’t want to sugarcoat it. It’s a hard place to work.”  

He stressed the importance to disengage and decompress from work when the shift is done.  

For Buckley, his faith has played a role in helping him find that balance. His interest in the connection between faith and science prompted him to return to the night shift to have a schedule that allowed him to complete a master’s degree in theology. His studies have been therapeutic to his work at the hospital, he said.  

“I don’t preach or try to convert. A lot of patients here know that I’m a Christian and they’ve asked me to pray with them. It gives them hope. That’s certainly a place to put your hope. I think prayer has shown to be valuable in recovery – whether physical or mental,” he said.  

It’s been a long road and at times, Buckley said it’s hard to remember what continues to motivate him.  

The benefits, salary and professional growth opportunities he’s had have made it difficult to look elsewhere, he said.   

But there’s more to it than that. To hear him talk about his experiences, it’s clear that his pride for his work and his colleagues runs deep and it shows in a corner of his home office that acts as a “shrine” to the hospital. Displayed in a corner nook are certificates of appreciation, books written about OSH or that feature OSH patients, a brick from part of the original hospital and other tokens that remind him of the place he’s worked for 43 years.   

“This is part of my make-up. It’s part of who I am,” he said. “Growing up, even when I came here in housekeeping – I didn’t know I’d stay here. But it’s been such an intriguing place.”  

That’s not to say that he’s not looking forward to his 2025 retirement date and more time for his new-found hobby of kayak fishing.   

Special thanks to all who donated money, gifts and time to help make the holidays brighter for OSH patients. Since 1986, OSH Volunteer Services has coordinated the Caring Tree program to support OSH patients who are away from their family, friends and traditions during the holidays.

This year, volunteers helped wrap more than 700 gifts that will be delivered to patients. Special guest wrappers included volunteers from OSH staff, the community and state agencies -- including a special visit from First Lady Aimee Kotek-Wilson (pictured right) who joined volunteers earlier this week.

The Joint Commission (TJC) is an independent, nonprofit organization that develops health care performance standards and accredits and certifies more than 23,000 healthcare organizations and programs in the United States.  

“TJC accreditation is an important indicator of the quality and safety of patient care a hospital provides. And because TJC also surveys our hospital for CMS conditions of participation, this renewal of our accreditation affirms what we already know: OSH staff are dedicated to providing a safe and therapeutic environment for the people we care for,” said Dr. Sara Walker, OSH Interim Superintendent and Chief Medical Officer.  

OSH is on a three-year survey cycle to affirm its accreditation status for both its Hospital Program and its Behavioral Health and Human Services Program. TJC surveyors conducted a rigorous, unannounced site visit at OSH in September to review the hospital’s compliance in several areas, including emergency management, environment of care, provision of care, leadership and patient rights. In letters received Dec. 4, TJC formally announced OSH’s accreditation status is valid for the next three years. 

OSH invites anyone who thinks they may have a family member who passed away at OSH, Oregon State Tuberculosis Hospital, Mid-Columbia Hospital, Dammasch State Hospital, Oregon State Penitentiary or Fairview Training Center to check the online directory.

Families who identify relatives on this list and want to claim the cremains should complete and submit the “Request for Cremated Remains” form. Questions regarding the cremains can be directed to the OSH Health Information Department at 503-945-2976 or at osh.cremains@odhsoha.oregon.gov.  

Join the OSH Museum of Mental Health and Project ABLE for the Mental Fitness Book Club starting in January. Discussions will be held every third Wednesday of the month at 5:30 p.m. at the Book Bin, 450 Court St NE in Salem. 

Everyone who attends a book club discussion will receive a free admission pass to the OSH Museum of Mental Health.

Here are the first six books the group will read and discuss:

• Jan. 15: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
• Feb. 19: The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
• March 19: I Know this Much is True, Wally Lamb
• April 16: When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress by Gabor Maté
• May 21: Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
• June 18: Laziness Does Not Exist by Devon Price

Follow the museum on Facebook and Instagram to help choose upcoming books. 

The Oregon State Hospital Advisory Board includes community members, patients and staff and its work supports patient care, safety and security. As part of its role, the board may review state and federal laws related to OSH policies and procedures and make recommendations to the OSH superintendent, Oregon Health Authority and Legislature.

The board’s upcoming 2025 meetings are at 1 p.m. Jan. 16, March 20, May 15, July 17, Sept. 18 and Nov. 20. 

The Recovery Times is a quarterly publication that shares stories about the people and programs of Oregon State Hospital in support of OSH’s vision of hope, safety and recovery for all.

OSH serves a patient population that is traditionally marginalized, stigmatized and underserved, including many people with co-occurring disorders and those impacted by structural racism, and disproportionally represented in the criminal justice system.