Clarity Child Guidance Center will open eight new pediatric psychiatric intensive care unit rooms in August, part of the nonprofit’s three-phase expansion of youth mental health services in San Antonio.
The $7 million completion of Phase 1 included the ICU, named Methodist Healthcare Ministries Living Unit, and the renovation of a kitchen with the capacity to feed 125 patients. The updated cafeteria will open July 1, and the ICU opens on August 1.
The expansion is Clarity’s response to experiencing an 86% increase in the number of patients admitted and placed on suicide risk precautions and an 89% increase in law enforcement referrals.
The center currently has 66 beds and serves 6,000 patients ages 3-17 a year.
Carol Carver, chief operating officer for Clarity Child Guidance Center, said the center’s current space for intensive care patients is “not ideal.”
In the new Methodist Healthcare Ministries Living Unit, children with complex, traumatic issues will have access to individual and group therapy rooms, a therapeutic and private recreation space and an outdoor courtyard. With these expanded services, the center will be able to serve 700 more kids each year, according to the nonprofit.
Children who are getting help for the first time may go into the existing units on site, which include a girl’s adolescent unit with 22 beds, a boy’s adolescent unit with 22 beds and a preadolescent unit with 14 beds, Carver said.
Once the pediatric psychiatric intensive care unit opens, the campus will have 74 beds, she added.
“We need more care. San Antonio is growing as we speak, by leaps and bounds, and we don’t have enough psychiatric care for patients right now,” Carver said.
State Sen. José Menéndez, Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai, District 8 Councilman Manny Pelaez and District 1 Councilwoman Sukh Kaur attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new pediatric psychiatric intensive care unit on Tuesday and echoed Carver’s sentiment about the growing need for youth mental health services.
“The rate of suicide in Bexar County amongst our young people has skyrocketed, and the state of Texas has not provided the financial support for more beds in the state,” Menéndez said. “If it weren’t for places like Clarity that provide care our children desperately need and deserve … the numbers would be higher.”
Phase 1 of Clarity’s expansion was funded by the center’s HEROES Campaign, which is fundraising for phases 2 and 3.
Phase 2 of the center’s expansion will cost about $3.7 million and will expand outpatient services. Construction will begin once the funding is 70% complete. Phase 3 will cost $3.6 million and will expand Clarity’s crisis area to assess 60 more kids in crisis per month.
“Mental health funding is at the bottom of the totem pole for charitable funding for health-related issues,” said Clarity Child Guidance Center CEO Jessica Knudsen. “In 2023, 40,000 people died from breast cancer, but 48,000 died from suicide, yet breast cancer raises 100 times more what we do for mental health.”
