Pediatric mental health hospital nears completion in Norfolk.
Few hospitals are equipped to manage children’s mental health treatment, but the need today is acute. At Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters (CHKD) in Norfolk, visits from children experiencing a mental health emergency rose by 300 percent between 2015 and 2020, reflecting a national trend.
“Our children need all of us to join together to make sure they are no longer suffering in silence or go without treatment for their mental health needs,” says John Lawson II, chair of CHKD’s Lighting the Way Campaign, which is raising funds for a new $224 million facility dedicated to children’s mental health and scheduled to open in 2022. “Our children are in crisis, and together, we can change their lives.”
CHKD MH Hospital_NW view
The new 14-floor facility, now under construction, will have 60 private rooms with space for parents to spend the night, healing amenities like music and art rooms, a rooftop space for fresh air and exercise, and therapeutic spaces for family-centered treatment.
It will also be the hub for outpatient mental health services and include primary pediatric care and a sports medicine program, to normalize mental health care among other medical services, so that healing broken spirits will be as natural as healing broken bones. The hospital will serve children with depression and anxiety, eating and feeding disorders, autism, bipolar disorder, and those with a combination of medical and psychiatric issues, like depression and diabetes.
For substance abuse, “we also provide medical detox in our main medical hospital. We will then support the families in finding the right path for ongoing treatment beyond the initial detox,” says Elizabeth Simpson Earley, the hospital’s public relations manager.
“For too long, children with mental health concerns have been waiting in their homes, their schools, and our emergency rooms for treatment,” says Jim Dahling, president and CEO of CHKD Health System. “This crisis has been building for years, and the recent pandemic has made it even more profound.”
By 2025 CHKD expects to provide 40,000 patient visits for mental health conditions each year, with 2,500 of those children receiving intensive in-patient care. The new facility will begin serving patients in August of 2022 and expects to phase in inpatient beds over several months. CHKD.org
This article originally appeared in the October 2021 issue.
