With the demand for youth mental health services on the rise in San Antonio, the nonprofit Clarity Child Guidance Center is in the midst of a capital campaign to help finance an expansion of its South Texas Medical Center campus.
To meet the need, the behavioral hospital quietly opened the $16 million Heroes Campaign for Clarity early this year, with $4.7 million raised so far, according to the center’s website. The center cited the pandemic, school violence and a return to the classroom as reasons why there’s an increase in demand for services.
Jessica Knudsen, Clarity’s chief executive officer, said the center, which helps anyone regardless of their ability to pay, has been “overwhelmed” by the need for mental health services in the area.
The center saw a 27% increase in inpatient hospitalizations, 19% increase in children who were suicidal, a 65% increase in inpatient treatment of kids that have never been seen in the mental health system before, and a 159% increase in the crisis services department, Knudsen said.
“We jumped from three to four walk-ins a day to now we have 20. Those are not referrals; those are not emergency rooms calling us; those are families simply walking in saying, ‘I need help right now and I don’t know where else to go,’” Knudsen said.
On Wednesday, the center celebrated a groundbreaking ceremony commemorating the progress of the campaign project and construction on phase one. The campaign has been underway for about nine months, and construction on phase one started Aug. 28 after 70% of funds for the project were secured.
At the groundbreaking event, Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai and District 8 Councilman Manny Pelaez publicly reaffirmed their commitment to youth mental health for San Antonio and Methodist Healthcare Ministries pledged $1 million to the Campaign for Clarity.
“We’re still seeing a lot of school refusal, of kids not wanting to go back to school, and a ton of school anxiety. They just are having a hard time with being in the classroom,” said Melissa Mireles, director of marketing for the Clarity Child Guidance Center.
About 60% of children at Clarity are uninsured, underinsured or low-income. In a 2022 San Antonio Teen Mental Health Survey, respondents reported their inability to perform day-to-day tasks, and feeling helpless, hopeless, numb and like nothing matters.
The Heroes Campaign for Clarity will fund the $16 million expansion in three phases. The first phase, estimated to cost $6.5 million, is $1.7 away from being fully funded.
In all, completion of the expansion depends on funding but will realistically take four to five years, Knudsen said.
“My personal and professional best estimate is I think we’ve got a decade of high need because of the ongoing ramifications of the pandemic,” Knudsen said.
Phase one should be completed by early summer of 2024, and will include the renovation of Building 5 into an adolescent and pediatric psychiatric intensive care unit with eight beds, and mental health services to serve at least 700 more children per year.
Phase one will also update and expand the kitchen, originally built in 1986, to fit 125 people, and add a trauma-informed space dedicated to children with complex trauma, a secured courtyard and a dedicated space for programming. The expansion of phase one will require the center to hire about 15 additional staff, including nursing, therapeutic recreational therapists and additional housekeeping.
Phase two will cost about $3.7 million and will finish the third floor of Building 10 to allow for more social work psychiatrists and capacitate 4,500 more outpatient appointments annually; and expand the Next Step Center to increase space and accessibility to psychiatric and psychology services.
Construction on phase two is expected to begin when funding is 70% complete.
Phase three will cost $3.6 million and will expand the crisis services department to assess an additional 60 children in crisis per month, adding two additional observation rooms, Knudsen said.
“We are overflowing. There are nights that all six of our crisis bays are full and all of our kids are on cots,” Knudsen said. “All said and done, that’s an addition [of] 1,000 kids a year that we can help.”
“We are not done fundraising,” she said.
