Today, Jan. 31, Cape Fear Valley Health broke ground on a new inpatient psychiatric unit for adolescents. The new facility is located on the campus of Central Harnett Hospital at 215 Brightwater Drive, Lillington.

“Since we opened the Dorothea Dix adolescent care unit in Fayetteville, we've seen how a facility like this can simply transform behavioral health for adolescents. We're excited to bring the same model of care here…When your child is in crisis, being able to turn to a local facility makes all the difference. Family is often heavily involved in taking care of these patients, and local access is the key. This will be a state of the art facility equipped with psychotherapy staff, psychiatrists, recreational therapists and others to support the critical components of evidence based care treatment for adolescents,” stated CFVH CEO Michael Nagowski at the groundbreaking.

The one-story, 8,850-square-foot building will include 16 inpatient beds and is estimated to be completed by December. It is designed specifically to provide help to psychiatric patients ages 12 to 17 and their families. The construction will cost $8.4 million, funded by the Dorothea Dix Hospital Property Fund and the State Capital and Infrastructure Fund.

“We need to be here for our families when they need our help to understand and heal the turmoil and distress their children are experiencing. This unit will be a nurturing, safe environment where all will be treated with the utmost respect and compassion. There's an exciting and important secondary effect of the building of this unit. We'll be able to include the training of medical students, psychiatry residents and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry fellows on this unit. We hope many will choose to remain in the area to provide greater access to inpatient and outpatient psychiatric services so sorely needed,” shared Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist Kenneth Fleishman.

Children in crisis and their families typically must wait in the emergency room until a bed is available at an adolescent psychiatric treatment facility in North Carolina. During an adolescent’s short-term stay, which is usually three to five days, they will participate in individual, group and/or family counseling with a focus on evidence-based adaptive skill building as a foundation for successful reintegration into the community.

A critical component will be providing services as needed to identify underlying issues and making evidence-based recommendations that will impact future treatment.  A secondary goal of the unit is to assist the youth and/or their families with accessing support services that will continue to help the adolescent in improving overall functioning within their home or community setting.