St. Luke’s University Health Network opened its new Adolescent Behavioral Health Unit last week to provide safe, expert and compassionate care to children and adolescents experiencing serious mental, emotional or behavioral symptoms.

The Adolescent Behavioral Health Unit is located at St. Luke’s Easton Campus, on the hospital’s third floor.

“The St. Luke’s Adolescent Behavioral Health Unit will keep care in the community and close to home,” says Linda Grass, St. Luke’s Easton Campus President. “Young patients who are admitted to the unit can expect to be engaged in an atmosphere where healing and recovery can occur.”

The addition of its Adolescent Behavioral Health Unit further expands St. Luke’s continuum of inpatient behavioral health services, which already includes facilities for adults and the geriatric population. The need for adolescent behavioral health care has only increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Sadly, pediatric mental health admissions in the United States have increased approximately 50% and emergency department visits have doubled related to suicidal attempts and suicidal ideation among youth over the past decade. However, the number of available pediatric inpatient beds have not increased and access to services have remained limited,” notes Andrew Clark, MD, Medical Director of the St. Luke’s Adolescent Behavioral Health Unit.

The 16-bed, 16,000-square-foot unit is specifically designed for patients ages 12 to 18 who are experiencing emotional and behavioral problems that interfere with their daily life, physical health, family or school routine.

“We made the unit feel like a place where healing can begin,” says Valerie Kappes, RN, BSN, Patient Care Manager, Behavioral Health Inpatient Services, SLUHN. She says that all patient rooms are private and are decorated with soothing colors and bathed with natural light that streams in through vaulted windows.

Some of the conditions that will be treated on the unit include: Severe depression and anxiety; substance use disorder; juvenile post-traumatic stress disorder; bipolar disorder; suicidal ideation; and other acute diagnoses that require crisis management, patient stabilization and/or medication initiation or adjustment.

The unit’s hospital-based, person-centered treatment offers the patient in crisis opportunities to attend individual sessions with case managers, group sessions with program and nursing staff, and daily assessments completed by the psychiatrist or advanced practitioners.