By Jennifer Fernandez
Key Takeaways:
- UNC Health Pardee has opened a 23-bed youth psychiatric facility in western North Carolina.
- While state data shows youth mental health is improving, young people are still struggling.
- Youth facing a behavioral health crisis have had few options for inpatient care in the region and often had to travel outside western North Carolina for care.
Cool blues and soothing greens cover the walls at the new inpatient Pardee Adolescent Behavioral Health Center at UNC Health Pardee’s Hospital in Hendersonville. And for teens in Henderson and surrounding counties, those walls will enclose a safe space for kids experiencing mental health challenges.
While recent data shows that youth mental health in North Carolina is improving, young people across the state continue to struggle, particularly in western counties.
The 19 counties of western North Carolina had the highest percentage of Medicaid-insured children ages 5 to 17 with a clinical depression diagnosis in 2023 than the state’s other regions, according to the state’s Child Behavioral Health Dashboard.
The new facility, which opened Sept. 9, added 23 beds in western North Carolina for youth ages 13 to 17 experiencing mental health issues. The $30 million cost to renovate the hospital was funded through the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Vaya Health and the UNC School of Medicine, UNC Health Pardee officials said.
Bridget Fluech, nursing director of psychiatry services at UNC Health Pardee, said it’s exciting to see the behavioral health center come together. Work started in March 2025 to renovate 40,000 square feet of space at the hospital, including former administrative offices, into a place to treat some of the area’s most vulnerable.
“Pardee is filling the ‘missing middle’ in the youth mental health system; the lack of timely, specialized inpatient psychiatric care for adolescents who are too acutely ill for outpatient treatment,” Fluech told NC Health News in an email.
Now, instead of languishing in an emergency department, or driving hours for care, young people will have a cool and soothing place that’s closer to home.
Filling a need
Nearly 30 percent of North Carolina high school students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the previous year, according to the 2025 NC Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a questionnaire administered in middle and high schools across the state every two years.
The 2025 results showed more than one in 10 high school students reported seriously contemplating suicide.
That’s actually an improvement from what students reported in the previous survey. The 2023 results showed 39 percent of high school students reported feeling sad or hopeless and 18 percent said they had seriously considered suicide.
According to UNC Health Pardee officials, the western part of the state has seen mental health-related emergency department visits increase by 25 percent over a five-year period.
Young patients facing a behavioral health crisis in the area have had few options for getting appropriate inpatient care, and often have had to travel outside western North Carolina for help, the health care system said in a news release.
Not counting Pardee’s center, there are eight in-patient facilities in the state that admit adolescents for mental health treatment under involuntary commitment, according to state data. Two are in western North Carolina.
AdventHealth in Hendersonville only accepts females ages 13 to 17, while Mission Hospital’s Copestone Psychiatric Services takes in youth ages 12 to 17. That hospital also has a unit for children ages 4 to 12. It’s the only one in western North Carolina to treat children under age 13.
Pardee, a public, not‑for‑profit health care system managed by UNC Health, covers a service area that includes Henderson, Buncombe, Transylvania, Polk and Haywood counties.
The new facility will accept patients on voluntary and involuntary commitment.
However, Pardee’s facility is not equipped to care for youth “whose primary needs are related to severe intellectual and/or developmental disabilities or whose level of developmental, behavioral, or medical support requires a specialized IDD treatment setting, such as the services provided through [UNC Hospitals Youth Behavioral Health] in Butner,” Fluech said.
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Space for healing
Pardee’s new Adolescent Behavioral Health Center has space for 23 patients. Most rooms are private, with a single bed. A handful have space for two patients.
The center has two wings, with shared space down the middle that includes exam rooms, the pharmacy and nutrition services. There are spaces for therapy, recreation and education.
Each of the two wings has a quiet activity room. That is where the majority of group sessions will be held, Fluech said during an in-person tour of the facility in August after a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The activity room is designed with “trauma-informed care” in mind, from colors to lighting. It’s also in line of sight of the nurse’s station.
Fluech said her favorite piece of furniture is the “nest” or cubby in the quiet activity room. It looks like a large open-sided box with a wood frame and a carpeted interior that can comfortably hold an uncomfortable teen.
“For a kid that really is wanting to be a part of the group but not really able to engage with the group immediately, they can kind of hang out in that little area and still be able to be a part of the fun and activities that are going on in here,” Fluech said.
There is also a comfort room that includes a cozy chair and big screen TV.
“There may be times that patients really need to deescalate and self regulate,” she said. “They can come here and be out of the really noisy area and just come in here and relax a little bit, unwind.
“Again, it’s in the line of sight of the nurse’s station.”
Each wing has a telepsychiatry room. Patients can use those spaces to meet virtually with psychiatrists at UNC School of Medicine. All other staff are in person at the center, Fluech said.
There are several tables and chairs set up next to the nurse’s station that serve as the dining room. But the kitchen area can only be accessed with an employee badge, so patients don’t have direct access to it.
Fluech said the hospital’s nutrition services department worked on designing “kid-friendly menus.”
“We will offer hamburgers, pizza, chicken fingers; you know, all of the things that kids want to eat,” she said.
‘What we could do’
Bed linens at the center are specially designed so that they can’t be tied up, ripped or shredded. Fluech said they are considered “anti-ligature,” meaning they can’t be used by patients to harm themselves.
Bathroom doors are made of a soft material — also considered anti-ligature — that is velcroed to the wall. The doors don’t cover the entire opening, providing some privacy but also allowing staff a partial view of the room.
Furniture is bolted to the floor.
Anti-barricade bars in the door jams prevent patients from blockading themselves in any of the rooms.
The entrance to the facility includes a sallyport — a passage with two sets of doors — which is designed as an “anti-elopement” area, Fluech said.
“If one door is unlocked no other door will open,” she explained. “It keeps people from being able to run out.”
There’s also a seclusion room, which Fluech said would be used as “an absolute last resort.” For that room, a staff member will always be present, she said.
Fluech said the center will start with a handful of patients and build up to the 23-patient limit. The hope is to be at full capacity within six months, she said.
Chief Nursing Officer Marilee Arnold said the adolescent unit was built in the oldest part of the hospital, and so won’t be able to expand.
There’s no more room at the hospital, Fluech explained.
Original plans called for a 33-bed facility. Based on available space and the special design for the center, that was reduced, Fluech said.
“I think we know this will not meet all of the needs,” Arnold said, “but this is what we could do.”
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