"We’ve got the opportunity to help children where they live, where they play, and where they go to school. That’s the potential of the Kids Mental Health Foundation.” – Eric Butter, chief of psychology at Nationwide Children’s Hospital
From the opening of the massive Big Lots Mental Health Pavilion in 2020 to the numerous partnerships formed with local school districts and mental health organizations like Buckeye Ranch, Nationwide Children’s Hospital has established itself as a vanguard of youth mental health treatment, research and awareness – not just in Ohio but nationwide.
Nationwide Children’s groundbreaking On Our Sleeves campaign brought attention to the children’s mental health crisis. Its informative and free children’s mental health content has reached over 15 million people online and counting, arming the public with the tools and knowledge to help them improve and maintain children’s mental health. Its educational content has also reached 3 million classrooms.
Rob Hardin
Photo courtesy of Robert Hardin/Nationwide Children’s Hospital
These initiatives have been invaluable in cultivating the conversation and crushing the stigmas surrounding children’s mental health, and Nationwide Children’s work isn’t done yet.
“Every time we’ve expanded, we have been met with more demand for services,” says Eric Butter, chief of psychology at Nationwide Children’s, during the foundation’s announcement event on April 23. “Last year, Nationwide Children’s Hospital had more than 250,000 outpatient behavioral health visits. We had more than 8,000 visits to our psychiatric crisis department for behavioral health emergencies. Thinking back over my two decades as a pediatric psychologist, those are just shocking numbers.”
A New Chapter
On April 23, Nationwide Children’s announced the Kids Mental Health Foundation. Through the foundation, it plans to continue promoting treatment, prevention and awareness of youth mental health issues on a national scale.
“One of the most important things we can do right now is called going upstream,” Butter says. “We want you to reach children before they’re in crisis. We want families, and schools, and businesses and communities to understand the importance of mental health and early action. We want to give these folks the tools to talk with and support children before they need a hospital.”
Photo courtesy of Robert Hardin/Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Nationwide Children's employees were invited to take a "mental health break" and attend the foundation announcement event.
Leading up to the announcement, Nationwide Children’s conducted research asking parents questions about their child’s mental health.
The results were grim with 70 percent of parents saying they are ‘concerned’ about their child’s mental health, with one in three parents indicating that they were ‘very concerned.’
This is part of the reason why the foundation’s goal is to “make mental health a vital part of growing up.”
Photo courtesy of Robert Hardin/Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Whitney Raglin Bignall during the foundation announcement event on April 23.
“We won’t ever eliminate sadness, or grief or stress, because life’s journey leaves its mark on us. Rather, we are here so that we don’t feel powerless in moments of adversity,” says Whitney Raglin Bignall, associate clinical director of the Kids Mental Health Foundation, during the announcement event. “We want to make sure that they are mentally well just as much as we want them physically well, all while helping adults build healthy, empathetic communities and create relationships with their kids and their lives so no child ever feels alone.”
Among those in support of the new foundation are Governor Mike DeWine and The Ohio State University’s head football coach, Ryan Day. While neither was present at the announcement event, they both sent video messages expressing their support and Day even sent the team’s quarterbacks to the event for photo ops.
“My family was affected by the loss of a family member through suicide when I was very young, so this cause is near and dear to my heart,” Day says in a video message with wife Nina by his side. “I talk to our players all the time about physical health and mental health, and physical health and mental health are equally the same.”
Maisie Fitzmaurice is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at mfitzmaurice@cityscenemediagroup.com.
