Tackling the Next Great Threat to Child Health Head On
Our experts at Cincinnati Children’s don’t shy away from complex and vexing problems, and donors are key to helping us accelerate solutions.
Cancer. Heart disease. Prematurity and birth defects. These are some of the biggest issues impacting child health today, and Cincinnati Children’s stands to meet them.
We’ve established dedicated institutes to tackle each of these threats to child health. We attract the world’s top researchers and teams of multidisciplinary clinicians who share the same vision of accelerating the pace of discovery so we can develop the most innovative treatments to get, and keep, kids healthy.
In 2023, we launched our newest institute aimed at helping more kids live their best lives: our Mental and Behavioral Health Institute (MBHI). The MBHI was made possible thanks to a transformational gift from the James J. and Joan A. Gardner Family Foundation.
Just as we established institutes to provide dedicated care and research for diseases of the body, the MBHI represents the next step in our efforts to free kids from mental illness.
Children and teens across the country are struggling with unprecedented levels of depression, anxiety and other serious ailments.
Fifty-three percent of adults with children in their household report concerns about the mental state of their kids. And their worry is warranted—suicide is now the second-leading cause of death in children as young as 10 to 18 years old.
The impact of this epidemic is staggering. Fortunately, Cincinnati Children’s is dedicated to finding solutions.
The Battle We Will Never Stop Fighting
Our commitment to treating behavioral health isn’t new. For decades, Cincinnati Children’s has been the national leader in pediatric mental healthcare. In that time, we’ve advanced important milestones.
In the early 2000s, we opened the Mayerson Center for Safe and Healthy Children, which united medical and community personnel (doctors, nurses, social workers, and representatives from the Hamilton County sheriff’s office and the Child Welfare agency) to revolutionize the treatment experience for patients.
A few years later, we established the Psychiatric Intake Response Center to make accessing help across our community simpler. With one centralized call center, families are connected to resources and services that meet their needs. The center has become foundational in the way Greater Cincinnati addresses mental health emergencies.
And thanks to a generous gift from the Convalescent Hospital Fund for Children, we opened our dedicated mental health campus in College Hill in 2002. What started as two, 12-bed units and one 12-bed acute inpatient unit, has been renovated twice and now features a 160,000-square-foot state-of-the-art building with 83 private rooms.
Our researchers also play a pivotal role in improving mental healthcare through a revolutionary technology that identifies people at risk for suicide based on the language they use. A patented SAM app alerts clinical counselors so patients can get the care they need.
We made it our business to create and perfect opportunities for healing and hope for families struggling with the mental health epidemic. It wouldn’t be possible without the generosity of our donors.
Establishing the MBHI required the commitment of many experts and an incredible lead gift from the James J. and Joan A. Gardner Family Foundation. Dedicated to making a difference in our community, they made a transformational $15 million gift—and the legacy of their impact could change the field of mental healthcare forever.
“It is no secret that our children and teens are struggling like never before and have an unprecedented need for anxiety and depression care. We are witnessing a heartbreaking surge in youth suicide,” says Steve Davis, MD, MMM, our president and CEO. “We stand committed to addressing this country’s mental health challenges, from expanding access to care to conducting vital research that will improve outcomes. The generous gift from the James J. and Joan A. Gardner Family Foundation provides critical resources for achieving this mission together.”
The Powerful Work of the MBHI
Among the MBHI’s top priorities are:
- Ensuring that every child gets the care they need when they need it
- Reducing school absences due to mental health issues
- Decreasing mental health emergency visits and hospitalizations
- Eliminating youth suicide in our region
Accomplishing these goals requires a deeper integration of three of our divisions:
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- Behavioral Medicine and Clinical Psychology
- Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics
These three divisions feature more than 1,000 care professionals. They will be in local schools, neighborhood primary clinics, emergency departments and the new College Hill facility.
“It is our hope that the new institute will transform how patients and their families address and navigate the mental health challenges our young population is facing,” says Ellie Johns, trustee of the James J. and Joan A. Gardner Family Foundation. “We know that the need is more apparent than ever and that the establishment of the MBHI will have an immediate effect and lasting impact upon the children in our community and their families.”
(Published August 2024)
