Norfolk children’s psychiatric hospital could be among the first in the U.S. to include in-room parent beds

Norfolk — Construction began on a new children’s psychiatric hospital two years ago, but it’s what’s going inside the 14-story building that doctors hope will soon break ground in pediatric mental health treatment.

The $224 million project on the Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters campus will include parent beds within every child’s room. The development team that traveled the country to visit leading mental health facilities did not see any with that feature, said Dr. Mary Margaret Gleason, vice chief of CHKD’s mental health services.

The idea is to allow mothers and fathers to stay by their children’s side, just as many do in medical hospitals when their little ones are facing other illnesses or injuries.

“It’s unheard of in the United States. It’s just really, really rare,” Gleason said. “The history of how we think about children’s mental health and the acute crises that bring them into a hospital hasn’t been family-focused to the extent that it can be.”

The children’s hospital has so far raised $50 million for the mental health tower, with the largest contributions coming from the Kenneth A. and Patricia A. Hall Charitable Foundation, at $5.2 million, and The Landmark Foundation, at $5 million.

CHKD announced the rollout of its public fundraising drive Wednesday, a campaign hospital leaders want to use to pull in another $10 million. The project also will dip into accumulated reserve funds, they said.

Incorporating other services in the building and not squirreling away the hospital in secluded woods will help take away the stigma of mental illness, said Amy Sampson, CHKD senior vice president of engagement and innovation. She also hopes the music recording studio, art rooms, a rooftop recreation area with a half basketball court and gardens will help normalize the experience. CHKD clinicians said many patients will end up staying in the facility for about 7-10 days.

The parent beds are just one element of the tower’s design that seem to defy stereotypes of a psychiatric treatment center. During a tour for reporters Wednesday, CHKD staff showed a sample room, which resembled a college dorm more than a clinical setting.

But every material and furnishing was selected to prevent patients from using them to do harm.

No sharp edges. No places to mount or tie bindings. Chairs are weighted with water or sand so they can’t be picked up or moved easily. A slim side door that looks like a panel allows staff to enter a room if a child tries to barricade the entrance.

A raised wall panel that looks like raked sand could be mistaken for art but is actually a surface a patient could touch for relaxation. Even the rooftop with its amenities will be secured with steel netting overhead to ensure that nothing — and no one — could go over the ledge.

The hospital conducted focus groups with children who had stayed at mental health facilities to help choose colors and imagery and test the rooms, Sampson said.

At some visits to other facilities, Sampson said she saw staff wearing helmets and armored vests while escorting patients within neurodevelopmental units. That inspired them to find alternatives to keep patients and staff safe while preserving the dignity of the patients.

“What we learned is that you can protect patients without having to come at them in what can only be described as riot-type gear,” she said.

CHKD expects to open the facility, which will also include a primary care practice, sports medicine program and other mental health services, in the spring. The 60-room tower could admit about 2,500 patients by 2025, and treat about 40,000 children through outpatient services annually.

Hospital leaders anticipate it will take $45 million to operate the mental health tower each year. About 70% of its patients are on government-sponsored insurance, Sampson said, so fundraising will be critical to keep the facility running.

“We are looking at every avenue of support,” she said. “And we want to make sure that we are appropriately reimbursed for the care that’s being provided because the intensity of care for mental health is akin to the intensity of care for medical treatment, yet it’s not always reimbursed by insurance at the same level.”

The hospital’s plans come at a time of unprecedented need for psychiatric care. In fiscal 2015, CHKD had close to 3,600 visits for inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment. The hospital’s estimate for fiscal 2021 is just over 25,000 encounters, a six-fold increase.

Some of that uptick could be attributed to the pandemic, but the hospital’s clinical staff say the demand for pediatric mental health care has been building for years. Children are needing treatment for anxiety, depression, mood disorders, eating disorders and neurodevelopmental conditions, like autism.

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Available beds and trained clinicians have not kept pace.

About five or six years ago, it would be unusual to have one or two kids coming into the ER by ambulance for inpatient psychiatric care, and they’d end up at a local hospital in about a day, said Dr. Carl Petersen, CHKD’s chief of psychiatry and mental health services.

In the past year, there have been times 10 or 12 kids have been waiting in the ER for beds and haven’t been placed for three or four days. That idle time often exacerbates a patient’s mental health crisis, he said.

“They could be really agitated,” Petersen said. “There’s no real intervention, except for just giving them medication, which we want to deemphasize.”

The tower is also expected to alleviate some of the pressure on the state psychiatric hospital in Roanoke, where many children with complicated medical conditions are treated, he said. CHKD will be one of the rare facilities that can offer both psychiatric and medical care for other health conditions.

So far the hospital has hired nine psychiatrists who will staff the facility. That number should double by its planned opening in 2022. More than 400 clinicians and support staff are expected to work full time in the mental health program.

Elisha Sauers, 757-839-4754, elisha.sauers@pilotonline.com