No parent wants to face the reality that their child is suffering with mental illness—but the difficult truth is that an estimated 17.1 million children in the United States are. Even more alarming is that suicide is the second leading cause of death in people aged 15-24. In Ohio alone, a young person takes their life every 33 hours.

Cincinnati Children’s commitment to research and treatment of child and teen mental health goes back more than two decades. With 100 inpatient beds and an additional 30 specialized residential beds, Cincinnati Children’s is the largest inpatient mental health provider of any children’s hospital in the country.

At a time when national providers are cutting funding or closing their mental health programs altogether, we’re continuing to invest in this life-changing—and lifesaving—work, because it’s the right thing to do.

To dramatically improve mental healthcare, we are focusing our talents, expertise and resources to prevent, cure or radically improve the treatment of pediatric and adolescent mental illness. We have improved facilities for both short-term stabilization and longer-term residential needs. We are working on providing earlier intervention, improving access to needed services and delivering targeted, evidence-based, personalized care.

Facilities and Programs Making a Difference for kids Need Your Support to Grow

While programming is strong at our College Hill Campus, the physical buildings were out of date.  With our expansion in Fall 2023, we were able to have dedicated private rooms to better support children and families. We also strategically increased design elements like increasing access to natural light, outdoor areas and recreation offerings at College Hill.

YOUR CAPITAL INVESTMENT

You can still make an impact on our facilities. Your support is critical as we outfit dedicated spaces for group therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and recreational therapy. These services currently take place in shared spaces and when one child’s behavior escalates, the entire group must stop, disrupting treatment for all involved.

We know a vibrant outdoors space is critical in our patients’ journeys of healing, so we have several opportunities to invest in these innovative spaces.

YOUR PROGRAMMATIC INVESTMENT

Your investment will support children and families dealing with mental health challenges at earlier stages to avoid full hospitalization.

We are committed to transforming pediatric mental health. With a gift announced in October 2023 by The James J. and Joan A. Gardner Family Foundation, we have established the new Mental and Behavioral Institute which provides a streamlined structure to coordinate all current and new initiatives, projects and collaborations addressing mental and behavioral health. 

Some of these current initiatives include the following. Working in partnership with you, we can expand our:

Community and School Based Programs

  • Placing psychologists in pediatrician offices and mental health therapists in schools – improving access by taking the care providers to the patients.

  • Providing community pediatricians access to our psychiatrists to educate them on how to better recognize and begin treating depression.

Outpatient Mental Health Management

  • Expanding classic outpatient care delivered through Cincinnati Children’s locations, neighborhood clinics, schools and community agencies.

Intensive Outpatient Care

  • Segmenting care for patients in acute mental crisis who do not require hospitalization.

  • Delivering targeted treatments (2-3 times/week) to decrease the need for hospitalization.

Partial Hospitalization Programs

  • Expanding availability of day programs for children needing help managing activities at school and home. Since children spend the day in our program, and then return home at night and for the weekend, we will make this care available closer to home.

    Your Partnership Matters

    Please contact Ashley Titus to partner with us in this work.

    513.803.6593   ashley.titus@cchmc.org