KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Children’s Mercy launches the first of 14 projects to address a mental health crisis in our community.
The hospital is opening a day clinic that will serve youth across the Kansas City metro.
One office is located at the Children’s Mercy Adele Campus Downtown. The other is at the College Boulevard location in Overland Park, Kansas.
It’s a Depression and Anxiety in Youth (DAY) Clinic.
“What we’re finding is especially in this region we have a high need for mental health care,” Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist Ram Chettiar, DO said, “and the need is not being met.”
Chettiar said our nation and community are facing a mental health crisis and our children are undertreated for mental health issues.
To address those needs, Children’s Mercy has launched the Depression and Anxiety in Youth (DAY) Clinic.
“The goal is access to care. and we haven’t had that up to this point,” Chettiar said.
The clinic is for children ages 12-17 with known or suspected depression and anxiety.
It’s the hospital’s first program dedicated to treating these conditions using cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy,
and mindfulness approaches to help stabilize patients and strengthen their coping skills.
“We are a one stop shop, where we can get medication management, individual therapy, group therapy, which are pretty unique in an adolescent population to find,” Chettiar said, “and then we all work together in our clinical teams.”
It’s a 9–12-month treatment program designed to get kids better, stabilized and back out to their community and their primary care doctors for on-going, long-term treatment.
“Our goal is, through this program, you can enter one or two or more of those pathways to make sure that the needs are met and get kids stabilized,” Chettiar said, “and get them back to their primary care or outside providers who then can continue longer term care.”
Chettiar said they’ve seen increasing rates of kids coming in the emergency room in mental health crisis.
“The community is not able to find the care it needs and we’re seeing that we just do not have the capacity to treat these kids,” Chettiar said. “So what ends up happening is sometimes these kids get identified and then they’re are waiting in crisis for many months.”
This project is part of the illuminate initiative, a $150,000 investment into children’s mental health.
The day clinic is one of the first of 14 mental health projects Children’s Mercy will launch over the next five years — impacting 80,000 children.
The clinic is currently taking patients.
To learn more about the DAY Clinic, meet the team and how to request an appointment visit The Depression and Anxiety in Youth (DAY) Clinic | Children’s Mercy Kansas City.
Children’s Mercy also recently announced it has formed a joint venture with Camber Health to build a 72-bed mental health inpatient facility in Olathe, Kansas.
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To learn more about the 14 projects and how you can help light the path forward visit click here.
To learn more about Fore the Kids Foundation and their role as a mental health champion for Children’s Mercy, click here.
Children’s Mercy opens depression, anxiety clinic
