Dover Behavioral Health System

Overall my experience in the PHP program was amazing. At first I was hesitant and not the most open minded due to past group therapy experiences but as the days passed I realized you only get out what you put in. The therapists and providers were all very helpful and were able to help me articulate my thoughts into words and find a coping strategy that genuinely worked for me. I would recommend anyone who struggles with mental health issues to at least try the out patient program, it worked wonders for me. I want to be alive, I enjoy waking up and feeling like the weight of the world isn’t sitting on my chest. It’s helped me understand my mind and taught me to pull myself out of it.

I wouldn’t recommend staying here to my absolute worst enemy. The staff is majority non caring and at their best they’re escalatory to mentally ill patients who came for a space to grow from their suicidal thoughts and addictions. The food was absolutely horrendous, I’ve had better food out of an MRE. The hard plastic chairs and beds offer absolutely ZERO comfort and have made my service connected back pain and nerve damage worse resulting in my need for intense physical therapy and recovery. Roaches litter this facility and in my week stay the only “cleaning” to be seen was spraying the vicinity with basic cleaner and if you’re lucky they’d sweep. The gym is a carpet half basket ball court where you’d get 30 minutes of “exercise” Onto “treatment” the only “activity therapy” offered is coloring and word searches. Their idea of treatment is medicating you with whatever they think fits and asking you if you still want to kill yourself. Onto the worst atrocity of them all, the staff. Staff would rather escalate and watch a problem over any sort of intervention or doing their actual job. Techs were quoted directly saying “this isn’t worth my 15 an hour”. Staff repeatedly yelled at easily triggered unstable patients, fights broke out daily and staff and patients could easily see the escalation and let it happen choosing only to intervene after food or fists were thrown. The only way to be discharged is if your doctor and social worker come to an agreement on your stability and further treatment. Good luck on that one as there’s only FOUR SOCIAL WORKERS for over 100 patients and same goes for doctors. Doctors were repeatedly quoted to be communicating with individuals social workers and then found to be lying directly to patients after tracking down begging pleading to speak with their assigned social workers. Social workers also have been seen and quoted disrespecting patients and ESPECIALLY veterans in this facility to the point where one of the techs that actually cared had to remind the social worker that the patient is a human being too. Sleeping isn’t available in this facility as every 13 minutes your room is entered and a flash light is shown into your face to assure you’re still exactly where they left you. Treatment in this facility is altogether unavailable most patients I had shared my stay with are all in agreement that this stay had only made their illnesses worse. For the thousands of dollars made on insurance per patient the level of this facility is utterly disgusting disrespectful and discriminatory.