A new Behavioral Health Unit at Kentucky Children’s Hospital opens its doors to patients this week.
The new 17-bed unit helps care for patients aged 5 to 17 with severe mental health concerns like depression, anxiety and eating disorders. It’s replacing a 10-bed unit at UK HealthCare’s Good Samaritan Hospital.
Elizabeth Fields is a patient care manager at the new unit. She said it’s helping provide its staff with care resources they didn’t have before.
“It’s a very needed service, not just in this local community, but across the state, “Fields said. “We see kids from across the state. And there are not nearly enough services or providers out there to meet the need right now.”
42 staff members including nurses, therapists and other specialists will be on hand at the new unit. That includes a full-time teacher from Fayette County Schools to help adolescent patients with schoolwork during their stay. Fields said around a quarter of the staff are new hires.
“When we do start taking the younger kids, we will have a team dedicated to taking care of the younger population and a team dedicated to taking care of the older kids,” Fields said. “So we'll have nurses and mental health associates that are dedicated to each group of kids.”
Plans for the unit began in 2018. Since then, the U.S. mortality rate for people aged one to 19 years old has greatly increased. A study done by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Washington said that rate rose more than 10 percent from 2019 to 2020. From 2020 to 2021, it rose another eight percent.
Amy Meadows is the chief of UK HealthCare’s Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She saud there’s been an increase of kids coming through UK emergency rooms with mental health crises, but there’s no one reason why that’s the case.
“The pandemic definitely hit kids really hard,” Meadows said. “We know that kids’ self esteem when they're exposed to social media can be pretty dramatically affected. And we know that families have had a really hard time, and when families are having a hard time, kids have a hard time as well.”
The unit will offer recreational, art and music therapy, rooms with therapeutic lighting and indoor and outdoor spaces for activities like yoga and video gaming.
Much of the day-to-day life for patients is structured towards learning specific skills or ways to cope. But it’s also important for kids to make meaningful connections and express themselves.
“A big part of therapy is also seeing other kids who are going through what you may be going through, and seeing kids who may be further along in their recovery, and being able to help yourself also by making those connections and feeling less isolated,” Meadows said.
The intensive program doesn’t come without challenges. Fields says some children can have anxiety or trust issues that come with an unfamiliar environment.
“I think that that's our biggest challenge, is just breaking through that barrier and being able to establish a trusting relationship,” Fields said.
But despite that uncertainty, Meadows said this sort of mental health care is especially important for children whose brains are still in that crucial development stage.
“I think the bottom line is that mental health is a part of health,” Meadows said. “And so when we're talking about kids succeeding, doing well, growing up healthy, we want to make sure that we're taking care of their emotional needs as well as their physical needs.”
And even though it’s a step forward for pediatric care in Lexington, Meadows said she’d like to continue to expand the program.
“I think our next step is really to enhance our outpatient community resources and people, not just to have the inpatient services, but also all the services outside of the hospital to support kids in their communities and where they are.”
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