Demand for mental health services has reached unprecedented levels. Metrocare is seeing more adults and children than ever before in our half-century history. As the largest provider of behavioral health services in Dallas County, we provide same-day access to psychiatric care regardless of ability to pay. Across all programs, Metrocare served 51,031 children and adults last year with 2,758 clinical encounters each day. There is a well-researched link between our physiology, our emotional state, and the physical surroundings we find ourselves in. These concerns were at the forefront when imagining Metrocare’s new Mental Health and Disability Innovation Center at its Hillside Campus, which will intentionally include bright, open spaces for clinical services, outdoor therapy areas for children, a tranquility garden, an outdoor terrace, and abundant nature views for clients and staff from two new buildings.

The 45,000-sq.-ft. Mental Health Clinic will serve as the centerpiece of the new campus where children, adults, families, veterans, and those with disabilities will receive integrated, evidence-based care.

Currently relocated due to construction, the youth mental health clinic that will be housed on the new campus is one of the busiest child and adolescent clinics in Dallas, where approximately 120 kids receive care daily. The 98,000-sq.-ft. Client Services Building, adjacent to the Clinic, will integrate Metrocare’s extensive countywide operations, including training and research. The entire campus expands capacity to serve by 23%, which means roughly 13,000 more people can receive services annually – 5,000 of those being children.

These new state-of-the-art facilities will play an essential role in further dismantling the stigma and shame historically associated with public mental health care in the injustice of passing off marginal facilities as adequate. Sadly, this has all too often been the case in the history of behavioral and intellectual disability care for disadvantaged populations, who have been told to “make do with what you get.”

Ultimately, the new campus will deliberately offer our community a dignified place that fosters healing, a place that reflects Dallas as a national leader, and a place you would want to send your family member struggling with mental illness or a disability.