Program Overview | Southern Arizona | Yavapai County, Arizona | New Mexico

Group Residence for Seriously Mentally Ill Individuals

Intermountain Centers has operated a group residence for Seriously Mentally Ill individuals, Kiva House, in Tucson since 1979. Kiva House provides a continuum of residential and support services for individuals who have been diagnosed with a serious mental illness and are too disabled to live with their families or on their own. The strength-based Kiva program provides a safe and caring environment in a home-like setting which fosters the independence of each of the residents. The direct care staff members deliver an intensive and innovative therapeutic program which is sensitive to the needs of each individual resident, their family members and the agencies referring them to Intermountain.

Kiva House is a Department of Health Services Level II group home for seven individuals in need of 24-hour staff supervision, monitoring and training. The services include:

Like all Intermountain programs, the Kiva agenda is designed to develop each individual resident’s self-sufficiency and self-management skills, sense of personal responsibility, pro-social skills, healthy leisure skills and interests, community awareness, and community responsibility. All clients are afforded daily opportunities to acquire positive life skills and interests.

Each staff member meets the Arizona State Behavioral Health qualifications for para-professional workers and supervisory staff. Every staff member completes both an academic and a practical intensive training course before being given the responsibility of working with Kiva clients, and participates in ongoing training pertaining to client and treatment issues annually.

Contact and Referral Information

Vincent J. McHale, Program Director
Intermountain Centers for Human Development
P. O. Box 17749
Tucson, AZ 85731-7749
Telephone: (520) 721-1887
Fax: (520) 721-0069
Email: vinniem@ichd.net

Success Story

Fred is 49 years old and has resided in Intermountain’s Kiva House in Tucson for five years.  He has been diagnosed with a serious mental illness in addition to being diabetic.  Until this year, four barriers kept him from being an independent person:

To increase his involvement in personal leisure skills and, thus, the amount of time he is engaged in an activity on his own, the Kiva staff assessed his interests.  As new activities were introduced, so were reinforcers for focusing for greater lengths of time on a solitary project.  Now Fred likes to:

Fred is highly intelligent and personable, energetic and physically active, very motivated, a keen historian, and has a great sense of humor.  He has a very happy and productive life at Kiva House.