Key Takeaways:
- UNC Health Pardee has opened a 23-bed youth psychiatric facility in western North Carolina.
- While state data shows youth mental health is improving, young people are still struggling.
- Youth facing a behavioral health crisis have had few options for inpatient care in the region and often had to travel outside western North Carolina for care.
Cool blues and soothing greens cover the walls at the new inpatient Pardee Adolescent Behavioral Health Center at UNC Health Pardee’s Hospital in Hendersonville. And for teens in Henderson and surrounding counties, those walls will enclose a safe space for kids experiencing mental health challenges.
While recent data shows that youth mental health in North Carolina is improving, young people across the state continue to struggle, particularly in western counties.
The 19 counties of western North Carolina had the highest percentage of Medicaid-insured children ages 5 to 17 with a clinical depression diagnosis in 2023 than the state’s other regions, according to the state’s Child Behavioral Health Dashboard…