Inpatient Adolescent Behavioral Health at Tacoma General
An estimated one in five teens between the ages of 13 and 18 live with a mental health issue.
Adolescent Behavioral Health at Tacoma General is the first and only inpatient program in Pierce County designed specifically to help teens facing mental health crisis.
Who we are
Our 27-bed hospital-based unit was designed to be a modern, inviting space with private rooms and open social areas, while also including state-of-the-art safety features to protect patients and staff.
Our collaborative team of pediatric and mental health experts includes a medical director, psychiatrists, psychiatric advanced registered nurse practitioners, registered nurses, lead psychologist, social workers, mental health professionals and mental health technicians. Working together we create a treatment plan tailored to each teen’s diagnosis and psychosocial needs.
While here, each patient meets individually with their psychiatrist or psychiatric ARNP daily. Patients have individual mental health assessments with a nurse twice a day.
Goals of hospitalization
Our facility was designed for brief, acute stays of 7–10 days. Our goals focus on getting teens safely out of the hospital and into ongoing outpatient therapy as quickly as possible.
Goals include:
- Keeping teens safe during a time of crisis and preventing suicide or harm to others.
- Stabilizing teens, preventing symptoms from worsening, and reducing suicidality or other potentially lethal behavior so they can participate in outpatient therapy.
- Initiating or adjusting medication regimen and ruling-out co-occurring medical problems.
- Creating a safety plan and connecting the teen and family with community resources.
- Providing teens with the opportunity to learn coping skills.
How we help
Adolescent Behavioral Health at Tacoma General offers care and treatment to teens facing a range of behavioral health issues, including:
- Major depression
- Anxiety disorders
- Psychosis
- Schizophrenia
- Bipolar disorder
We accept patients ages 13 through 17 for voluntary, involuntary and family-initiated treatment.
Our treatment program is based on trauma-informed care (TIC) and recovery principles, valuing the empowerment of teens to play an active role in their behavioral health stabilization. We provide a wide variety of structured therapeutic activities for patients, including parent/caregiver psychoeducation and support.
Each teen’s individualized treatment plan may include:
- Comprehensive psychiatric evaluation and treatment
- Medication review and management
- Multidisciplinary treatment interventions including nursing assessments
- Psychosocial assessment and discharge planning
- Care coordination
- Group therapy
- DBT skills
- TF-CBT skills
- Creative arts therapy
- Recreation therapy
- Milieu therapy
- Family psychoeducation and support groups
Once teens are ready to leave our unit, their care team will work with the family and outpatient providers to have a safety plan in place. The team will also provide the parents or caregivers with tools and education on the treatment that happened during their teen’s stay and how to continue to use the skills that they developed. Follow-up appointments with outpatient providers are also initiated prior to discharge and coordinated with the caregiver.
Refer a patient
Admission to our program requires a referral from a referring emergency department.
Providers, call 253-403-0556 to refer a patient. This number is monitored 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.