A charity raising funds for a new mental health outpatient unit for Canterbury children and teenagers has been given $1 million by the New Zealand Community Trust.
Image showing plans for a new mental health outpatient unit for Canterbury children and teenagers. Photo: Supplied
The donation means the Māia Health Foundation is more than halfway towards its goal of raising $6 million for the unit in Hillmorton for young people up to the age of 18.
Community Trust chairman Alan Isaac said demand for mental health services in the region was staggering.
"Canterbury has been through so much in the last decade and the impact of that on the region's young people is clear," he said.
"We view this grant to Māia Health Foundation as a long-term investment in the health of Canterbury's and more broadly the South Island's most important asset - its children, young people and their families."
Photo: SUPPLIED/ Māia Health Foundation
Data shows there has been a 140 percent increase in demand for child and youth mental health services in Canterbury since January 2018.
Most outpatients are treated at The Princess Margaret Hospital and Hillmorton Hospital campus, where buildings are old, run-down and unsuitable for modern treatment methods.
The government turned down a Canterbury District Health Board request to fund a new outpatient unit in 2019.
Māia Health Foundation chairman Garth Gallaway said the $1 million grant was a big step forward for the project, with the unit due to open in the middle of next year.
"It will provide hope and inspiration to the mental health staff who battle outdated buildings every day to support and care for our community's most vulnerable," he said.
The effects of the earthquakes, mosque attacks and the Covid-19 pandemic on young people's mental health was driving demand for services, Gallaway said.
Maia Health Foundation chairman Garth Gallaway Photo: Supplied
"The need is huge. The better our facilities can be then the better the outcomes will be for our young people. I'd like to think that the project was a pretty compelling one."
The foundation has so far raised $3.15 million for the unit, which will be housed in the former Canterbury Linen Services building on the outskirts of the Hillmorton campus.
Canterbury DHB's clinical director for the child, adolescent and family services, Valerie Black, said the purpose-designed fit-out will see youngsters offered more individualised treatments.
"There's an increasing use of sensory tools with young people and helping them learn strategies to help manage difficult emotions using those kinds of tools," she said.
"Here, we'll have a specialist sensory room that will have all those tools available. Staff will be able to take people to those rooms and look at different options that will really work for them and try them out on site, so that'll be really great."
An artist's impression of the interior of the building. Photo: SUPPLIED/ Māia Health Foundation
The design includes a separate entrance and exit for rangatahi in crisis who need urgent care.
"That's for some young people, often who may have taken a significant overdose or they may be experiencing really distressing kinds of experiences, they may end up having to come by ambulance or by police potentially.
"In those kinds of situations where people are highly distressed, you want them to have a separate entrance, where other people aren't staring at them or looking or other people aren't being frightened by the level of distress, like the young people in the waiting room."
Māia has also released four images of the new outpatient unit for the first time, showing the exterior, entrance and reception area.
The charity's chief executive Michael Flatman said as soon as young people and their whānau step onto the re-vamped facility, they will feel more comfortable.
"It's not just a fancy entranceway, it's actually going to be another clinical space," he said.
"Staff will be able to take the kids out and work with them in this beautiful environment. It's a really welcoming place for families, when they first enter the service, to be met.
"It's not going to be as confronting as perhaps some facilities might be."
Maia has also released four images of the new outpatient unit for the first time, showing the exterior, entrance and reception area.