The University of Rochester Medical Center is opening a new clinical space to meet the needs of children experiencing a mental health crisis. The Golisano Children’s Hospital will open its Brighter Days Pediatric Mental Health Urgent Care Clinic on July 15, funded by the Brighter Days Foundation. Dr. Michael Scharf, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at URMC, emphasized that the center aims to help children and families in times of crisis by providing flexible and family-centered alternatives to emergency care options. The clinic will offer walk-in evaluations, crisis intervention, and family-centered support for children and their families, among other health and wellness needs.
Fourteen-year-old Blaine Hayward Collins, a former patient of the child and adolescent psychiatry unit, is optimistic that the new clinic will provide better care for young patients. He hopes to see more individualized, comfortable, flexible, and independent care options tailored to the needs of each patient. Scharf estimates that the clinic will serve approximately 3,000 patients per year.