Doc B Changes Lives for Siouxland and Alaskan Children:

In the eyes of his child patients, he's an adult they can learn to trust.

This Dakota Dunes man is known to his neighbors as Dr. Richard Brown Jr., the Medical Director of Boys and Girls Home and Family Services, Inc. He is an also active member with the Sioux City Arts Center Association, Women Aware and a non-profit organization in Des Moines that involves family health issues.

But, most importantly, Doc B is a ray of hope in the lives of so many Siouxland children.

Brown provides psychiatric consultations and manages medications for the young people at the Boys and Girls Home and Family Services, Inc. facility in South Sioux City, NE, Boys and Girls Home of Nebraska.

"I see the kids myself. I do medical checks. I do psychiatric evaluations. I do crisis intervention. I provide that direct care to 52 kids in South Sioux City," Brown explained.

"A lot of our kids come here and they are very individually focused because of what occurred in their lives. They have to take care of themselves. We have to teach them how to interact with other kids, how to be supportive of other kids," Brown said.

Brown graduated from Oakwood College in Huntsville, Alabama. During his time at Oakwood, he was chosen to participate in the Harvard Health Career Summer Program for two summer semesters, 1970 and 1971. The program, which started in1969, gave minorities the opportunity to perform at an ivy league school and the chance to interview with medical schools. Brown was one of the select 100 to participate in each of the summer programs.

After he graduated from Oakwood College, Brown attended and graduated from medical school at Loma Linda University in California. He then spent 3 years of his residency at Loma Linda University Medical Center and his final year of residency at the University of California at Los Angeles Neuropsychiatric Institute in Psychiatry.

During his third and fourth years of residency, Brown started working at the California Youth Authority's Maximum Security Facility in Chino, California. The strict system for youth and adolescents convicted of murder, arson, homicide and other felonies was Browns introduction to working with children with conduct disorders.

"I literally went through locked doors and gates; seven locked gates to get back to my office when I was there," Brown explained of the CYA.

Despite the rigid atmosphere, Brown developed a passion for working with children during his time at the CYA .

"They were very interesting kids. And they were still kids," Brown emphasized. "Even though they were criminals, they were still kids. I realized I enjoy working with kids."

After he completed his residency, Brown became a member of the medical staff at Battle Creek Adventist Hospital in Michigan. The psychiatric mental health hospital provided inpatient units for both adults and teenagers, however, Brown's love of children sparked the birth of a new unit at the hospital.

Since there were no child psychiatrists in the area, the Adolescent Inpatient Acute Mental Health Treatment Unit came to fruition with Brown serving as the unit's director and one of the admitting psychiatrists. Brown went on to also help develop an outpatient partial hospitalization program where young people can come in, and not be hospitalize, but get treatment for part of the day.

After 11.5 years in private practice on the medical staff at Battle Creek Adventist Hospital, Brown moved on to work at Lakeside, a residential care facility for teenagers in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Eventually, Brown moved to Sioux City in August of 1992. He was recruited by Marian Health Center to develop an adolescent inpatient acute mental health program. With his wealth of experience, and love of children, the youth again came first. The program was formulated and he started seeing patients in September of 1992.

During his time with Marian, Brown was still in touch with Lakeside, who hadn't filled his position. Putting quality first, and making sure the children are always cared for, Brown made sure the Lakeside patients didn't go unserved.

While working for Marian in Sioux City, Brown traveled back to Lakeside for an additional 6 weeks. "Every Tuesday I worked in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I would get there by 12:00, and I'd work from 12 to 6. I was giving them six hours a day. I loved the kids there."

Soon someone saw Brown's passion and knew he'd be a perfect fit at Boys and Girls Home and Family Services, Inc.

In September of 1993 he became a consulting psychiatrist part-time for the home while their current consulting psychiatrist prepared for retirement.

Part-time led to full-time, and in March of 1995, Brown officially became the Medical Director at the home.

"We were the first facility in the state of Iowa to have their own psychiatrist for this type of facility. There were 12 adolescent residential care facilities in the state of Iowa," Brown noted.

Currently, Brown works with 15-20 residential kids per day. His duties include being the supervising practitioner for all of the kids in the South Sioux City facility, which can have up to 52 kids.

Brown monitors their medication, provides psychiatric consultations and trains the staff about the treatment programs.

"We have been real creative of how we approach young people and developed a lot of interventions that many facilities don't have in working with young people," Brown explained of their variety of interactive activities.

Brown is also working closely on a project to expand services to children far from the Midwest.

"Boys and Girls Home will be opening a facility on 8-8-08 in Fairbanks, Alaska," Brown proudly acknowledged.

In a partnership with Family Centered Services of Alaska, Boys and Girls Home and Family Services, Inc. is devising an Alaskan location complete with a group home for kids and outpatient programs.

Brown has traveled to Alaska for one week out of each month since November 2007 to ensure that the facility is run properly.

"As I've gone up there I've gotten to understand the environment and the culture of Alaska. That will help, I think, make a good transition for us as we open our program there. It's also been very positive for building the clinical communication between Family Centered Services of Alaska and Boys and Girls Home," Brown said.

Some might find that much jet-setting for work a bit daunting, but for Brown, it feeds into his love of travel.

"I love to see places that are very different than what I'm used to, and experience them. And experience different cultures and you can see how other people live and meet new people. Growing up I lived a zillion places, so it became very easy for me to move, to travel, to meet people, so it's not very hard for me," Brown explained.

Despite the long hours, frequent flights and extensive business travel, Brown is making sure each child receives the treatment they need, one at a time, in the Midwest and Alaska. And his co-workers are taking note.

Terri Dooley, Executive Vice President of Development at Boys and Girls Home and Family Services, Inc. sees the passion daily.

"He is relentless in being able to change kids lives. That is what guides his everyday work. It's the kids. We have like a family thing here. I mean, I can't tell you the number of times I have heard him talking about "We have to make sure we do it right, for the kids,"" Dooley explained.

And even during his free-time, Brown is thinking of the children. He makes it a point to bring back books from his travels to add to the library at the home.

"Oh, I love what I do. I love what I do. It keeps me young," Brown laughed.

And, the children love what you do, Doc B.

***This article was originally published in the North Sioux City / Dakota Dunes Times by Sedgwick Publishing.***