Inpatient Adolescent Mental Health Unit: Inova Fairfax Hospital

The purpose of our program is to create a safe haven for healing by building on strengths, honoring resilience and promoting partnerships with the patients and families we are privileged to serve in helping teens during a crisis to return to everyday living.

Today's adolescents face different kinds of pressures. When teens become overwhelmed with stressors at school, at home and in the community, at times a structured, short-term inpatient care stay in an atmosphere of support and respect helps alleviate the emotional and psychological "build-up." Once in treatment, adolescents learn how to deal with their emotional and behavioral issues so they can quickly return home with better coping tools to deal with stress, as well as an outpatient treatment plan to help them continue to get better. The program is designed to meet the acute-care psychiatric needs of adolescents.

Specific conditions and needs we can assist with include:

• Aggressive behavior
• Extreme changes in sleeping or eating habits
• Suicidal and homicidal thoughts or behaviors
• Dangerous to themselves or others
• Depression, anxiety
• Panic attacks, phobias, or obsessive behaviors
• Bipolar disorder
• Extreme mood swings and hyperactivity
• Prolonged sadness or crying
• Schizophrenia
• Self-harming behaviors (i.e. cutting, burning, and pulling out hair)
• Unable to provide for their own health and safety
• Psychological concerns related to trauma (i.e. nightmares, flashbacks, and irritability)
• Withdrawal from friends
• In need of diagnostic treatment services that can only be obtained in an inpatient setting
• Behaviorally or emotionally dysfunctional behavior to a degree requiring the structural boundaries of hospitalization

The goal of treatment is to stabilize symptoms, make medication adjustments, and begin a plan for aftercare, so patients can continue with their treatment plan even after discharge. Our specially trained staff focuses on each individual patient and his/her specific needs.

Inova's treatment approach consists of:

• Crisis stabilization, assessment, and diagnosis by a multidisciplinary care team
• Comprehensive mental health assessment
• Psychiatric and medical evaluations
• Nursing and social work care
• Group therapy including cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy skills, various expressive therapies, art therapy, recreation therapy and yoga, stretch, mindfulness and movement groups
• Medication assessment, initiation, management and education
• Education on symptom management
• Family meetings
• Collaboration with school and other providers
• Comprehensive discharge planning and aftercare

Our unit operates on a three pronged model of care: The first is trauma informed care. The second is patient and family centered care. We strive to provide care that is specific to each individual and within the context of the family. Lastly, our staff is trained in Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) tools to identify lagging skills while resolving issues and difficulties in a collaborative and mutually satisfactory way.

We have a collaborative, multidisciplinary care team that consists of:

• Psychiatrists
• Licensed Therapists
• Social Workers
• Psychiatric Nurses
• Mental Health Technicians