Help Us Light the Way to Better Mental Health Care for Kids

Our community is in crisis. One out of every five children has a diagnosable mental health condition. While early intervention can make a life or death difference, fewer than 25 percent of those children receive treatment. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for children ages 10-24.

The need for additional pediatric mental health services is putting pressure on our schools, our families, and every aspect of our region's medical system. Mental health conditions are the most common reason local youths ages 10 through 17 are admitted to hospitals. And more than one-third of visits to primary care pediatricians are for mental health concerns.

The time has come and the responsibility is ours to provide the mental health services our children need.

CHKD established the Lighting the Way campaign to support our efforts to address the shortage of mental health services for children in our region and beyond. The centerpiece of this initiative is our new Children’s Pavilion, a 14-story tower on our main campus in Norfolk where exceptionally talented clinicians, researchers, and medical educators from across the U.S. are joining the CHKD team to provide desperately needed mental health inpatient, outpatient, and partial hospitalization services.

The generous response of our community to this need has been remarkable. We have exceeded our initial goal to raise $60 million in support of this initiative; however, with the mental health needs of our children escalating at an alarming rate, we have decided to push past this target to establish a new goal of $75 million to provide more of the services needed to tackle the ever-growing crisis affecting our youth.

The Children’s Pavilion opened on April 25, 2022, with the launch of outpatient services in mental health and the opening of General Academic Pediatrics and a sports medicine clinic. The opening of inpatient mental health services will begin in fall of 2022 and continue in phases through 2023.

Please join us in lighting the way to a brighter future for all children by making a gift to our mental health campaign.

CHKD in the News