One in every four to five youth in the general population meet the criteria for a lifetime mental disorder, according to Youth.gov in a 2010 report.

A mental health facility called Nexus Youth and Families is trying to help youth who suffer from a mental disorder or need to be located to a better living situation.

Nexus is a nonprofit that is “committed to youth and their future” in the greater South King County area according to a Nexus press release.

They came to Maple Valley in 2017 and are located at 24930 224th Avenue SE.

“So we have two main divisions, our behavioral health division and our homeless services,” said Shelly Pricco the executive director of Nexus. “So in our behavioral health division we do everything from infant mental health all the way through family mental health. So we’re serving youth, young adults, parents and then the infant mental health piece.”

She said they also have a substance use disorder treatment, which is an assessment for potential addiction issues and if there is a concern, she said Nexus is able to provide the individual with therapy.

When a client is in a bad living condition, Pricco said they try to relocate them to a better living situation.

“We also have transitional housing so if we get a client that is willing to have more stable housing, which most of them are, we will move our clients into transitional housing or help them find other ways of affordable housing,” she said.

Nexus came to Maple Valley because the city asked them too, according to Pricco.

“They saw the work that we were doing with Vine Maple and the Tahoma School District and realized there was a need within the city, so we started discussions with them; ‘How would this look? What would we provide?’ And came up with this ‘satellite office,’ as we are providing the same services that we would in our other locations, and wanted to replicate that specifically for Maple Valley,” Pricco said. “We couldn’t have done it without the city partnership.”

Nexus has worked with the Tahoma School District and has had success with its students.

When Nexus is located in a particular city, they are good at adapting to a city and their mental health needs, according to Gary Hemminger, one of the behavioral health directors at Nexus.

“We’ve developed an in-community setting. We’re very good at working with the communities and the entities within the community to develop services and programs that actually match and fit that community,” Hemminger said.

Currently, the Maple Valley location has a drug and alcohol councilor and there are three or four therapists that are starting to schedule their appointments there, Hemminger said.

Pricco said Nexus is different from other mental health facilities.

“I would say that I think that Nexus is special because of our emphasis on youth and young adults. So where you might have other organizations that do the whole spectrum of age, we have been around for 45 years and have specifically always geared our services to youth and young adults,” she said. “So we feel, for a lack of a better word, we feel we are the specialists (or) the experts when it comes to youth and young adults and when you can reach out to youth and young adults and help them, you are also helping families.”

Hemminger said he is looking forward to working with Maple Valley.

“I would just add how I excited I am that we are now adding this to Maple Valley because we’ve been working with the school and we appreciate that opportunity and now this, the city stepping up and helping us get this in place will really provide a comprehensive mental health, drug, alcohol service to the community and we’re all very excited about it,” he said.