Children’s Mercy Kansas City Receives $17 Million Matching Gift Aiming to Fully Fund Illuminate Behavioral Health Initiative

Children’s Mercy Kansas City is thrilled to announce a generous anonymous donor has pledged $17 million to match every dollar to help reach its $150 million funding goal for Illuminate – a comprehensive initiative launched one year ago as a bold vision to address the mental health crisis impacting children and teens throughout our region.

“Our plans expand access to specialty care, improve early intervention and screening, increase the capacity of inpatient beds in the region, and invest in research to better understand and improve treatments,” said Paul Kempinski, MS, FACHE, President and CEO, Children’s Mercy. “The success of this initiative requires engagement and collaboration of the community, and we are grateful for the generous support thus far. We are excited about the impact we can achieve together in improving the well-being of many children.”

More than 15 million children need mental health services, but only 30-50 percent receive care. In the Kansas City region, those numbers are higher, with 40-50 percent going untreated.

“Thanks to the impact of over 3,200 community champions we have secured $120 million to-date, making significant strides in one short year by expanding access to pediatric mental health services at an astonishing pace,” Jenea Oliver, PhD, Children’s Mercy Chief Development Officer said. “This $17 million matching gift gets us one step closer to fully funding our Illuminate plan, impacting more than 80,000 kids over the next five years in desperate need of mental health services.”

The impact of the generosity of community champions is already making a difference – rapidly increasing the types of mental health services available to local families:

• This week the new Mental Wellness Campus in Olathe opens 48 beds dedicated to kids in need of in-patient care. 
• The Children’s Mercy Eating Disorders Clinic has eliminated wait times for families and expanded care for Avoidance/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (AFRID) – the only consolidated program in the region to offer medical treatment, nutrition services and therapy for ARFID.
• The Depression and Anxiety in Youth (DAY) Clinic at Children’s Mercy Adele Hall Campus has seen a more than 60% improvement in both anxiety and depression scores of patients.
• A pilot program embedding behavioral health specialists in primary care practices across the Kansas City metro is transforming wait times from months to minutes.

“We are starting to see the impact of Illuminate, but the need is still significant, and we must continue to work toward meeting that need – families are depending on us,” said Rebecca Johnson, PhD, Children’s Mercy Director of Developmental and Behavioral Health. “In 2023, Children’s Mercy provided care to nearly 4,000 children with acute mental health needs in our emergency department. We are hopeful that the new Olathe Mental Wellness Campus, combined with new acute care services currently under construction, will reduce the time kids in crisis spend in our ED, or avoid it altogether. These acute care initiatives paired with our other new programs will do so much to improve care for youth in crisis because we will be able to intervene sooner.”

The Illuminate project includes four strategies and 14 projects, of which two are complete, seven have been initiated and three more will begin construction this Spring. Learn more at childrensmercy.org/illuminate.