Laura Nix, chief nursing officer at Medical City Mental Health & Wellness Center Alliance, said patients between the ages of 18 to 89 have already been seen and the adolescent program will aid patients ages 12 to 17 when it opens.
The details
Medical City Mental Health & Wellness Alliance provides partial hospital programs, intensive outpatient programs and inpatient programs.
The partial program gives monitored care and the outpatient intensive program is three or four full days a week, Nix said.
Of the 88 beds, 16 will be for adolescents, four for seniors and 68 for adults, said Janet St. James, assistant vice president of public relations and media communications at Medical City Healthcare.
Prior to the opening, the next closest mental health hospitals are in Arlington or downtown Fort Worth.
“In this corner of Tarrant County, there isn’t anyone [else],” Nix said.
Counselor Katie McCoy, who runs Mindwell Therapy in Keller, echoed those thoughts on the available options.
“If somebody is in a major crisis, going to therapy one hour, once a week, might be helpful to some degree, but not in a severe crisis,” McCoy said.
Zooming out
In May, Medical City Healthcare was one of 60 programs nationwide recognized for its psychiatry and behavioral health programs by Becker’s Hospital Review, including the Alliance location.
“The need for adult and adolescent behavioral health care are great across Tarrant County, Texas and the United States,” Medical City Mental Health & Wellness Alliance CEO Jim Russell said.
The breakdown
Nix said that 5.3 million adolescents have been diagnosed with some form of mental health issues in the United States and suicide is the second-leading cause of death for children ages 12 to 17.
Last spring, in the aftermath of three students committing suicide in one week, Keller ISD officials said it provided additional counseling support and prioritized mental health programming.
According to data from KISD, counselors from pre-K to 12th grade conducted 797 suicide-risk assessments in the 2023-24 school year. Northwest ISD counselors handled 699 cases of self-harm/suicidal ideation, said Jamie Farber, director of
guidance and counseling for the district.
McCoy said after school hours, it’s on the parents to watch if their children are being bullied or cyberbullied. In 2017, David’s Law, or SB 179, addressed cyberbullying and required school districts to handle cases reported by a parent.
“There are not a lot of resources in the area if teens are in a major crisis,” McCoy said.
For extreme cases, both NISD and KISD’s web sites state students should immediately go to the hospital. Medical City Mental Health & Wellness Alliance’s adolescence program will be open by the start of the 2025-26 school year
What’s next
Nix said Medical City Alliance’s parent company, Hospital Corporation of America, has held classes with experts in various fields to cover current health trends for school nurses throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area for years.
Russell added that last spring, KISD nurses and counselors toured the hospital for educational purposes and to learn what the new Alliance mental health facility will o ffer.
Russell said he wants Medical City Alliance to be a resource to all of the school districts in the Alliance area of Fort Worth and neighboring areas like Keller and Roanoke.
“I’ve been very impressed [with] the desire of school nurses and counselors to really get more education [on mental health] so they can help parents and children,” Nix said.
