Ensuring every person in King County has the opportunity to live their best life.
We’re a family of over 600 professionals who work with unbridled optimism, unyielding compassion, and an acute sense of purpose.
In 1963, the ground-breaking legislation known as the Community Mental Health Act was passed. This ushered in a brave new era of community-based care, paving the way for the commitment to a more humane approach to mental health treatment.
It inspired former Governor Booth Gardner and local businessman Artie Buerk to found in 1966 what is now Sound Behavioral Health.
Almost 60 years later, and despite changes and societal disruption, SOUND’s story remains one of advocacy, inclusion, and compassion. And the services we provide the citizens of King County are as vital and essential as ever.
The population of people in our community who urgently need the behavioral healthcare we provide is unfortunately growing at a rapid pace. These are good, valuable people, whose life circumstances have presented them with seemingly impossible odds to overcome. Poverty. Disabilities. Abuse. Addiction. Mental illness. Homelessness. And often trapped in a cycle that binds them to hopelessness, despair and defeat.
We’ve evolved into a diverse, vital organization made up of extraordinarily committed behavioral health care professionals, passionately devoted to reversing this trend.
Our innovative programs produce scores of life-changing outcomes. Thanks to the dedication of our unwavering team, our brave clients, and the members of our community who generously and selflessly support our mission, we find hope for our continued progress toward providing essential care for anyone who walks through our doors in need.
Together we can offer hope, health, recovery, and a higher quality of life for everyone in our community.
We are committed to holding ourselves and each other accountable by listening to our team members and clients and taking action together. With humility, we acknowledge the biases in our policies, practices, and culture and work to address them through ongoing education, training, recruitment, and accountability.
our deji missionSOUND employs an extraordinary, dedicated, multidisciplinary team of chemical dependency and mental health professionals — social workers, counselors, marriage and family therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurse practitioners, nurses and peer leaders. (All are state registered, licensed and/or certified.)
To ensure that our care is delivered to the highest standards possible, SOUND undergoes rigorous state, county and national accreditation
The strength and diversity of our Leadership Team, our Directors, and our Board of Directors give us every reason to believe that we will continue our mission of providing hope, fostering recovery, and transforming lives across the region.
In June 2023, we were very fortunate that Katrina Egner, an authentic, passionate advocate and knowledgeable innovator who has worked within SOUND for over 20 years, stepped into the role of President & CEO.
A powerful coalition of SOUND, Compass Health, Comprehensive Health, and Frontier Behavioral Health - four of Washington state's largest behavioral health agencies. United, we champion the enhancement of statewide behavioral health services, amplifying our impact and reach.
In partnership with FareStart, we support their mission of transforming lives through culinary skills training. A SOUND clinician is on-site weekly, offering readily accessible behavioral health services to students as they build towards economic stability and brighter futures.
Our co-responders collaborate with legal professionals, school counselors, and social workers to divert individuals in mental health crises from incarceration to appropriate treatment. This innovative approach builds community trust, eases the burden on first responders, and allows Tukwila police to focus on their core responsibilities.
Burien Police and Fire Departments also rely on SOUND co-responders in a similar fashion as described above in our partnership with the Tukwila Police Department.
SOUND's reach extends into education. Contracted to provide vital behavioral health support in over 150 public schools across multiple King County districts, we’re committed to nurturing the mental wellbeing of our community's youth.
Genoa Healthcare provides hands-on, personal pharmacy services to people living with behavioral health and other complex conditions. Genoa Healthcare partners with SOUND managing on-site pharmacies at our Capitol Hill and Lake City Way locations.
ICHS provides culturally and linguistically appropriate health and wellness services and promotes health equity for all. ICHS employs SOUND for psychiatric consultations and plans are underway to have ICHS primary care services on-site at SOUND in Auburn.
