Admissions

Is Lakewood Right For Your Family?

Lakewood Center, Fern Park, Florida, welcomes admission inquiries from families, physicians and mental health professionals.

Admission Criteria

Lakewood Center is a residential community offering long-term psychiatric treatment to adults ages 21 and over diagnosed with a mental illness including Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Major Depression, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

There is a minimum length of stay of 6 months and families interested in Lakewood often appreciate the fact that there is no maximum length of stay as long as their loved one continues to meet the criteria. Lakewood Center is located on a beautiful, 15-acre lakefront campus in Fern Park, Florida, which is just north of Orlando. Candidates for admission will have a diagnosis of a chronic mental illness, be ambulatory and free of major medical conditions requiring on-going nursing care, willing to participate in a treatment program and its services, assessed as having the potential (with staff supervision) to self-administer medication, maintain personal hygiene and appropriately participate in social interactions.

Exclusionary Criteria

Lakewood Center is not equipped to provide treatment to individuals that require support for the following:

  • Co-occurring drug and alcohol related issues
  • Eating disorders
  • Borderline Personality Disorder
  • Persistent mania
  • Cognitive challenges
  • Non-compliance with prescribed medications
  • Actively suicidal
  • History of violence or exhibits violent tendencies

Lakewood Center is an "open" campus and would not be an appropriate placement for an individual who requires 24-hour visual monitoring.

Admission Process

Lakewood Center welcomes admission inquiries from individuals, families, physicians and mental health professionals. The day of admission may be several weeks after the initial call. Either the CEO or the Clinical Director will spend time talking with the caller sharing information about the program and learning more about the potential applicant. Once the preliminary decision is made that Lakewood may be an appropriate placement, the Clinical Director will work with the family to request medical records from previous and current placements and providers. After this information is received and reviewed by the Admissions Committee and the decision is made to proceed with the admission process, the family is given an Application for Residence and the Clinical Director will schedule a face-to-face assessment with the applicant and tour of Lakewood Center.

Based on review of the interview and clinical data, the admission status is determined. As many families travel from all over the country, it is possible for the applicant to come for the assessment and tour ready to stay if the admission is approved.

TOP