Raley-Teel Family Honors Matriarch in Supporting Key Mental Health Expansion
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sutter Health today announced the largest gift to mental healthcare services for Sutter in Sacramento from the Thomas P. Raley Foundation established by Joyce Raley Teel and Jim Teel. Led by Foundation Chair Claudia Teel Doerhoff and the Raley-Teel family, the Foundation is proud to honor their mother and her empathy for helping others, especially those suffering from mental health challenges of anxiety and depression. This groundbreaking gift will support the first phase of the Sutter Behavioral Health Center of Excellence in the Greater Sacramento market. As the primary health system serving the catchment area across Sacramento for behavioral health patients, this significant gift will enable more patients to be seen for the treatment of anxiety, depression and other conditions.
Joyce Raley Teel with her husband, Jim Teel.
“We set out in search of the best organization in the Sacramento area to advance mental healthcare, and after meeting with Sutter CEO Warner Thomas and his leaders and learning of their commitment to breaking the stigma of mental health conditions, our decision was easy,” Claudia Teel Doerhoff says. “In fact, we increased the size of our gift after visiting the Sutter Center for Psychiatry and seeing how our investment could improve care in our community.”
In addition to being the largest gift supporting mental healthcare for Sutter in the Sacramento area, it is the largest gift from the Raley-Teel family to healthcare.
Physician champion Dr. Ozra Nobari from the Sutter Center for Psychiatry in Sacramento led the tour and explained her vision for improving the care and access provided to patients in the area. Joined by dedicated Sutter Center for Psychiatry staff and leaders — including CEO Dan Peterson, Director of Nursing Leilanie Ayala, Manager of Ambulatory Services Corbin Bosse and Medical Director of Interventional Psychiatry Dr. Hammad Khan — the team is excited to partner with the Foundation to expand and enhance services to the community.
The cash gift will be split for two projects. First will be an interventional psychiatry program pilot to expand treatment modalities including Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and research into other novel therapies. The second project will create a multipurpose Observation Unit to support safe patient discharge and safe patient monitoring when needed after procedures, allowing for a timely transition of patients out of units, while ensuring close monitoring for all patients in a private, comfortable setting. This gift provides the foundational support toward the first-of-its-kind Behavioral Health Center of Excellence in Sacramento, combining inpatient services with expanded ambulatory services through an enhanced Outpatient Mental Health Clinic in a single setting.
“Helping more people through mental health challenges is one of the biggest fights of our generation, and Sutter Health hasthe breadth and expertise to bring about meaningful change,” says Raya Elias-Petros, chief philanthropy officer at Sutter Health. “We are deeply honored that donors like Claudia and the Thomas P. Raley Foundation have chosen to partner with us.”
The Raley-Teel family realized that Sutter Health was already in a leadership position for mental healthcare, and they hope this gift will accelerate innovation for the system and inspire others to consider supporting behavioral healthcare in the Sacramento area. Joyce Raley Teel, a well-known philanthropist in the Sacramento area was devoted to supporting the arts, education, children and healthcare throughout her community. Her daughters and family carry on that tradition, giving from their heart and remembering their mother quoting Plato as a guiding principle for her life, “Be kind to others, for they too may be suffering.”
