Inspiring joy and independence: The new frontier of pediatric mental and behavioral healthcare design
Close your eyes for a moment and imagine this scenario. You're brought into a small room, all white cinderblock walls. Fluorescent lighting. You're told to hand over all of your personal belongings. Remove sharp objects, including belt, glasses, watch, hair pins. Hand over your phone, your connection to the outside world. Dispose of all food, drinks and personal items.
Where do you think you are? If you said jail, you're wrong. But what I just described is intake for an older model pediatric mental and behavioral health facility. This is the start of a healing process – one that seems destined for failure when a child steps foot in this kind of institutional space. This intake alone is worsening their trauma rather than fostering an environment that shows them they are beginning a journey of wellness. This traditional approach is wrong in so many ways; experience is everything.
We can't expect kids to come out with better outcomes if this is how their journey starts and ends. If we're not more aware of the environments they're living in during this process, we’re not promoting the essence of what we’re here to do – heal. If a child didn’t have trauma before they entered, they likely do when they are discharged. These older institutional facilities take parts of a child’s safety net, their identity and strip it away.
How we design an environment can reinforce existing traumas, even create new ones. Or we can use this opportunity to start the healing process from the moment they enter. Give them comfort where they need it most. Create spaces that heal and alleviate trauma.
While working as the Senior Director of Facilities for Connecticut Children’s, I saw firsthand just how important it is to create spaces and environments that heal but also create moments of joy and delight where it’s least expected.
Since joining CannonDesign as the leader of its Global Women and Children’s Health Practice, I have been amazed by all those in the firm tirelessly committed designing for a child’s physical, mental, emotional and social well-being. And as more pediatric care providers seek to close the gap between children’s mental health needs and access to appropriate care and resources, our team has stepped up with some truly innovative solutions and resources that treat kids, while still letting them be kids.
Following are a few projects and design strategies that are expanding what it means to provide mental healthcare for kids by focusing on their holistic needs.
Empowering patient choice and activities
The crux of the design intent of the new Behavioral Health Center at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital is patient choice — giving its pediatric patients the ability to choose their movement and activities during their stay.
Conventional mental health facilities impose restrictions on patient activities, limiting what they are allowed to do and where they can go. This short- and long-term stay hospital is designed to support recovery by eliminating typical corridors and nursing stations to cultivate choice of movement and enhance patient-provider visibility.
The building is also sculpted around a central activity courtyard, which allows for many activities from watching movies to playing sports to quiet reflection time. A core design ethos of this project was to promote inclusivity and accessibility by creating these experiences for all ages and abilities through intuitive and relatable spaces. Letting kids be kids and express their innate curiosity and playfulness is part of our Whole Child approach, used plentifully in this project, set to open in 2026.
Similarly, the design of the new Dayton Children’s Behavioral Health Center is centered around an outdoor courtyard, with activity spaces and open milieu areas on the perimeter. Placing the inpatient unit on the outside of this courtyard and other activity areas ensures near constant access to daylight and the outdoors for patients and staff. This differs from ‘traditional’ mental health inpatient units that operate as a hub and spoke, with a clinician station at the center with corridors of patient rooms branching outwards.
Centralizing the design around the courtyard also provides multiple and less obvious options for staff visibility to patients, both those who are out in the courtyard and those in the hallways or rooms. While there will be staff present while patients are using the courtyard, the design allows for passive supervision of the space by other staff who may be working inside the building, and vice versa.
Expanding the spectrum of services
While access to mental healthcare for kids is improving slowly, more inpatient beds does not necessarily help kids who do not need long-term intensive care. Preventing an acute mental health crisis is ideal, as is early diagnosis and intervention to ensure kids can be kids and live a childhood full of play and wonder.
At Children’s Wisconsin in Milwaukee, there is a dedicated mental health walk-in clinic for kids and their families who are experiencing urgent mental health issues. As opposed to an emergency department or regular urgent care clinic, at the Craig Yabuki Mental Health Walk-In Clinic they receive tailored care, referrals to specialized care and more.
This clinic is within the Clinics Building, connected to the Skywalk Building and Craig Yabuki Tower on the Children’s Wisconsin campus, all designed by our pediatric team. All public and patient care areas are tailored for children through richly designed graphics, designed to be sophisticated, yet playful. Interactive elements are used throughout to engage children with hands-on experiences that also act as distractions during stressful or frequent visits.
Normalizing neurodiversity in schools
Designing for neurodiversity is quickly becoming a ‘must have’ consideration when designing pediatric spaces. An estimated 15-20 percent of the world’s population is neurodivergent, and these diagnoses (such as autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit disorder, sensory issues, and more) are now being made earlier in life.
Accommodations have long been made for children with non-traditional learning needs, especially in schools. But often this has isolated them from their fellow classmates or put them on a different learning trajectory.
Edison Park Elementary School in Chicago wanted help creating a new single-room sensory space for neurodiverse student development needs. The school wanted a space that would consider every sensory input (touch, sound, balance, etc.) and be able to adapt to diverse student needs both day-to-day and over time.
The Edison Park sensory room has three distinct clusters around gross motor skills, sensory activation and calming. Some of the unique features include a sensory swing, a bubble light, activity table and more.
The future of pediatric mental health is providing care and services for children along the entire spectrum—from prevention to outpatient resources to acute care. But we must not create spaces that leave children feeling lonely, isolated or unable to connect with their peers. Mental healthcare spaces can be just as playful, joyous and full of curiosity as any other place meant for kids. I am proud we are designing places where kids can be kids, even when they are going through challenging mental health situations.
