Covenant Children’s awarded half million dollar grant

Covenant Children’s has been awarded a $500K grant to support its new Pediatric Relational Health Unit, currently under construction and set to open in August 2023.

The Pediatric Relational Health Unit is the result of multiple years of effort and the long-standing partnership between Covenant Health and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. The outpatient unit will ensure pediatric patients in West Texas and eastern New Mexico have access to mental health services.

The new unit represents a significant, multimilliondollar, investment in the community, made possible by support from TTUHSC, the Covenant Health Foundation, and multiple donors who share Covenant’s mission of caring for the mental health of the poor and vulnerable. The Well Being Trust is a Foundation of Providence Health that is dedicated to advancing the mental, social, and spiritual health for all. Covenant Children’s funding comes as part of a larger round of behavioral health grants, totaling $4.9 million.

Dr. Sarah Mallard Wakefield is chair of the psychiatry department at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine.

“Mental health is one of the most common issues children and families face,” Wakefield said, “yet we have no children’s or adolescent inpatient unit for our area. We have no children’s or adolescent day treatment or intensive outpatient services in our region. So, if a child or family is in extreme crisis, they leave our community. And they go very far away. Hours away.”

Covenant Children’s is providing a solution to this crisis with the diverse services being offered at the new Pediatric Relational Health Unit; including two services new to Lubbock – aimed at keeping kids as close to home as possible.

Covenant Children’s CEO is Dr. Amy Thompson.

“As the region’s only freestanding children’s hospital, being able to provide robust services for any and all needs of patients and their families is top of mind,” Thompson said. “We’ve seen increases in pediatric behavioral health issues and having to hold these kids in our ED, or in our inpatient units, while we wait for an inpatient placement.

This new unit aims to keep kids as close to home as possible by allowing many to stay and receive treatment in the IOP or PHP programs, rather than having to be hospitalized at an inpatient program - the closest of which is hours away.

These new services really elevate the level of care, in a meaningful way, for our community and we can’t wait for the community to be able to benefit from it.”

The desire for vitality is not age denial. We are not defying age when we live with strength, passion, creativity and purpose. These qualities have nothing to do with age. They are about a state of mind – not a date of birth. – Marc Middleton