KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It’s been a year since Children’s Mercy Hospital announced an ambitious program called Illuminate, which aims to dramatically expand the rising need for youth mental-health services and address the lack of current infrastructure.
The $150-million initiative, which former KSHB 41 News Anchor Dia Wall documented last year when it launched, is a five-year plan that encompasses 14 projects.
The goal is to increase early intervention, increase speciality services, invest in research and innovation, and expand hospital care.
“We are starting to see the fruits of our labor come to fruition and see some results in some of our programs,” Emily Snow, the senior administrative director of behavioral health for Children’s Mercy, said. “We still have a long way to go and we’ve still got a long runway for some of our programs.”
Children’s Mercy has already opened its Depression and Anxiety in Youth, or DAY, Clinic, which treats patients ages 12 to 17 years old with group and individual therapy as well as medication as needed.
More than 1,000 patients have taken part in more than 3,000 family therapy appointments and 2,000 individual therapy appointments already in 2024.
Children’s Mercy also announced a partnership with Camber Mental Health in Olathe for a state-of-the-art, in-patient mental wellness campus, which opens Dec. 2. Forty-eight of the $53-million facility’s 72 beds will be dedicated for pediatric patients.
The hospital also has launched a three-year intervention pilot program with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City in the Center School District, expanded its eating-disorder clinic and launched the Autism and Neurodevelopment Continuity Clinic pilot program to support families navigate a diagnosis.
Next year, Children’s Mercy plans to add a partial hospitalization program in August and open an emergency mental health crisis center in November, which will help handle the nearly 4,000 children who came to the ER for mental-health and behavioral issues last year.
“We’ll be the only partial hospitalization program in the city that serves kids under the age of 12,” Snow said. “So, really we're taking care of the kids that have fallen through the cracks when it comes to finding mental health services. We will be able to care for those kids through that partial program.”
Children’s Mercy has deemed it a necessary, though expensive, expansion of services. The hospital is currently raising funds to meet a $17-million challenge grant, which it hopes Kansas City residents will support on Giving Tuesday.
“Any any bit helps,” Snow said. “Behavioral health is an expensive type of medical care, so we need to we work hard to raise money to care for kids who are experiencing these crises.”
Youth seem to be particularly vulnerable at the beginning and end of each school year and during the holidays.
“There's a lot of stress,” Snow said. “There's a change in your structured schedule that occurs. You have a lot of different transitions. You have interactions with family that you may or may not have healthy relationships with. The pressure to have it all be perfect is hard on kids and adults.”
The social transition and the stress of report cards as semesters end can create extra stress for kids, but there are ways parents can lessen the burden on their children.
The simplest way is to ask how they are doing and if they’re feeling OK, while keeping routines as normal as possible.
Snow said it’s also important to build and honor family holiday traditions, but not to overdo it.
“I encourage families to do outdoor stuff if the weather permits and play silly games, like humorous games that you wouldn't usually choose to play but are appropriate for everyone in the family,” she said. “Take breaks, take time away for yourself. Do self-care. I know that's a word that we use a lot, but do self-care by just giving yourself some time alone to rest and recover and encourage your family members to do the same.”
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