Becker's Behavioral Health: The result of Children's Mercy's $150M bet on mental health
By Ella Ruder
In 2019, a social worker at Kansas City, Mo.-based Children’s Mercy came off a 14-hour shift and left behind a note at 3 a.m.: “Five kids with nowhere to go because of mental health needs. Can Children’s Mercy do something?”
It pointed to a gap in the care continuum: children well enough to leave the emergency department, but with nowhere nearby to get the ongoing care they needed. It also captured a familiar helplessness — families and care teams standing in an ED with a child in crisis and no clear next move.
The system’s answer was to stop treating the ED as the last stop on that journey.
That question didn’t stay on a sticky note for long. By 2023, it had become Illuminate, a five-year, $150 million commitment built around 14 projects and four strategies: earlier intervention, expanded specialty access, research and innovation, and better care both inside the hospital and after discharge. The campaign hit its goal more than two years ahead of schedule, crossing $150 million in March 2026 with the support of more than 5,000 donors.
Getting there took more than a five-year plan on paper. “We decided as an enterprise and an institution that behavioral health was pediatric health, and while it did not necessarily have the same ROI or make money as other areas did, it was our responsibility to help fix it in the community,” said Stephanie Meyer, chief nurse executive and COO of acute care at Children’s Mercy.
Read the full article via Becker's Behavioral Health