New clinic opening Monday, March 2, on SR 28
Valley Oaks Health will open its new Clinton County clinic Monday next to the BMV office at State Road 28 and County Road 200 West, marking the first local office since the organization was designated the county’s Community Mental Health Center in July 2025. The move follows Community Howard’s decision to step down from providing community mental health services in Clinton County, with Valley Oaks tasked with assuming that role.
Regional director Dr. Deep K. Battu, PsyD, told Frankfort Rotary Club members the new site will begin with a “soft opening” next week, with a public open house planned in May to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Month. “We are officially opening our office on Monday,” she said, adding that staff were working this week to finish maintenance and parking improvements before clients arrive.
Valley Oaks’ role in Clinton County
Valley Oaks Health was formally assigned by the state as Clinton County’s Community Mental Health Center last summer, expanding its existing service footprint in north‑central Indiana. Battu oversees services in both Clinton and Carroll counties and said the organization has spent the past several months absorbing clients previously served by Community Howard.
“From July to December, we were really hard at work trying to absorb clients that transferred over their services from them to us,” she said. “We’ve already taken in over 200 clients since July.” She emphasized that the transition has had “glitches along the way” but said staff have “tried the best that we can with those clients” during the handoff.
The new Frankfort clinic occupies space that previously housed the Division of Family Resources office along State Road 28, in the small plaza that also includes the BMV. Battu said Valley Oaks plans to add parking to ease congestion there.
Services offered: therapy, case management, medication
Battu described Valley Oaks as a safety‑net provider offering a full continuum of outpatient behavioral health services across a wide swath of west‑central and north‑central Indiana. “Therapy, case management, meds — those are the three main things that we do in each of our clinics,” she said.
Key services include:
– Individual and family therapy for children and adults, offered in‑office and via telehealth.
– Case management and skills training that takes staff into homes, schools and the broader community.
– Psychiatric medication management through psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners, a workforce Battu described as difficult to recruit in many counties.
Valley Oaks serves children as young as five through older adults, and accepts Medicaid, Medicare, most commercial insurance and sliding‑scale self‑pay. “Everybody has a different walk of life that they can afford,” Battu said, noting that each office also has entitlement specialists to help residents apply for Social Security and insurance benefits.
Crisis response and work in schools, jail and probation
In addition to clinic‑based care, Valley Oaks operates a crisis response center and mobile crisis unit based in Lafayette that is already responding in Clinton County. Battu said the goal in crisis calls is “not to go to the hospital or jail,” but to de‑escalate situations on site and then connect people to ongoing services when needed. “Anybody can call them,” she said of the crisis line, adding that she hopes to bring the crisis center director to a future Rotary meeting for a detailed presentation.
Locally, Valley Oaks has begun embedding services in multiple systems. Battu said her team is:
- Providing intakes and therapy on Mondays at the probation office in partnership with Chief Probation Officer Matthew Risk.
- Seeing clients at the ASI group home in day treatment.
- Coordinating with Healthy Communities of Clinton County, local schools and the county jail to identify gaps and build programming.
“We are in some of the schools already,” she said, mentioning Rossville, Clinton Central, Clinton Prairie, Frankfort and the Crossing alternative school as initial partners. She stressed that Valley Oaks is “Switzerland” in school settings and is working to collaborate with other mental health providers already in the buildings rather than compete with them.
Staffing needs and call for community collaboration
While services are expanding, Battu said the biggest constraint is workforce. “I’m in the process of trying to find therapists, licensed therapists,” she told Rotarians. “That is our hardest position to fill in all of our clinics.” She noted that many therapists gravitate toward larger cities with higher pay, making recruitment to rural counties challenging.
To manage demand while staffing grows, Valley Oaks is using a mix of in‑person and telehealth visits and borrowing two therapists from Carroll County to help launch Clinton County services. Battu said she also relies on a weekly team‑based approach to review complex cases and determine whether clients need more, less or different levels of care.
Battu repeatedly asked residents to be patient as the new clinic ramps up. “There’s always such a high need,” she said. “I will tell you to please grant us some grace…as we grow our services and our capacity, understanding all the roles that are in the community.”
She closed by inviting referrals, ideas and introductions from local leaders. “If there’s other people you want me to meet, I’m more than happy to meet them,” Battu said. “Whatever information that you guys think would benefit for us to have a presence, please [share it]. I’m here to learn.”
