In this section:

Behavioral Health

Sound mental health is crucial for overall well-being, productivity and high quality of life. Yet the state of Texas has 62% fewer mental health facilities than the national average and a shortage of behavioral health professionals.

To help meet consumers’ needs, Texas Health Behavioral Health (THBH) strives to eliminate these and other barriers to care to help individuals living with mental illness live their best lives despite having a chronic health condition. With 18 locations across North Texas, we offer both inpatient and outpatient treatment for depression, anxiety, stress, serious mental illness and substance abuse for adolescents and adults.

Additionally, THBH provides detoxification, residential treatment and outpatient care services to support the millions of individuals struggling with substance abuse. On average, Texas Health has about 1,000 encounters each month with individuals diagnosed with substance use disorders in its emergency departments alone.

Our health system also takes steps to minimize the risk of opioid and fentanyl-related harm or addiction among our patients. Physicians on the medical staffs use industry best practices for safe opioid use.  These practices include the consideration of opioid alternatives, patient education and monitoring for signs of overuse. 

To keep staff and patients admitted to our behavioral health units safe, we implement measures to detect and mitigate potential agitation, violence, self-harm and fall risks to maintain a safe and secure healing environment.

2023 Highlights

THBH:

• Added six new programs at THBH Center Arlington to meet the rising demand for higher-level mental illness and substance use disorder treatment.
• Deployed an innovative agitation management program across inpatient units. The program combines early detection of severe anxiety and agitation with early intervention to reduce the likelihood of violence. Measures like these have helped THBH reduce its serious safety event rate by more than 90% in the last two years. 
• Conducted a psychiatry-specific fall risk assessment on inpatient units. Addressing safety risks enabled THBH to reduce the rate of falls with injury by 50%.
• Implemented a robust platform to enhance the telehealth experience and better engage providers and family members in discussions. This also has helped reduce no-show rates and increased the number of consultations.

Navigating the Struggle of Mental Health Through her work at Texas Health Behavioral Health Center Arlington, nurse Cecilia Mora has seen firsthand the increase in adults and adolescents struggling with mental health issues. But there were no red flags to warn her that the mental health crisis had hit much closer to home. Her son, Joel Salas, became suicidal. Mora enrolled her son in an adolescent partial hospitalization program at the hospital. He attended two weeks of daily group therapy and had access to a nurse, doctor and therapist. Within a few weeks, Mora saw improvements, and the experience drove home to her the importance of professional help. “Most parents don’t seek help, especially in our community as Hispanics,” Mora said. “But he didn’t want to talk to us about it. Mental health struggles are real, and they can happen to anyone.” For Joel, the program enabled him to share what he was going through with a therapist and other teens in ways that he couldn’t with his parents because “I felt like it would have changed the way they saw me.” “I 100% believe that the program helped me with many coping skills and different ways of thinking,” Joel said. “It really opened me up to talking more and being OK with getting help.”

Spirituality

Texas Health’s faith-based heritage and traditions are at the heart of everything we do. We are grounded in the belief that integrating faith, spirituality and medicine can enhance treatment and healing. We implement this in many ways, mindful of the diversity of faiths and how people nurture their spirits.

Texas Health’s Faith & Spirituality Integration Department:

• Offers on-site and virtual pastoral care through board-certified chaplains and maintains on-site chapels and meditation gardens that provide a quiet place to pray, worship, meditate and breathe.
• Engages patients, faith communities, and workforce and clinical leaders to provide spiritual education, support and resources.
• Teaches pastors how to offer competent and compassionate spiritual care through a comprehensive training program accredited by the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education (ACPE).

2023 Highlights

Texas Health:

• Laid the foundation for launching Community/Congregational Health and Hospital Ministry Partners (CHAMPs) in 2024 as part of Texas Health’s Community Health Ministry initiative. CHAMPs will deliver health education programs, make hospitality connections with faith communities, and provide social determinants of health education and support for health improvement initiatives.
• Integrated pastoral care with Texas Health Care at Home, offering virtual spiritual support to patients and their families receiving treatment at home.
• Collaborated with Texas Health Behavioral Health to deliver presentations to faith leaders on “Conversations on Faith, Anxiety and Depression: Best Practices for Faith Leaders” and “Understanding the Impact of Resiliency on Mental Health.”
• Launched a healthcare chaplain-led education program for clinicians caring for patients and families at times of perinatal death, as well as virtual bereavement support groups for consumers.
• Collaborated with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas to train 12 Mental Health First Aid instructors, who will then teach these programs in parishes across high-need ZIP codes. In 2023, more than 300 individuals from 35 parishes received this education.
• Supported the work of some of its pastoral care team members, who serve on the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare’s executive committee. They influenced the national launch of Schwartz Rounds, a forum for healthcare staff to discuss the emotional and social aspects of their work. The program is offered to hospital staff across the system.

Helping Spiritual Leaders Care for Themselves Stress, isolation and the challenge of keeping congregations together during divisive times have taken a toll on pastoral leaders, prompting many to reconsider their career paths. To help address these burdens, Ricky Cotto, director of community engagement for Texas Health and lead pastor of City Post Church in Fort Worth, organized North Texas Healthy Communities’ annual summit focused on the well-being of local faith leaders.   Struggling with the need to have it together all of the time, about 40 local clergy convened to discuss mental health from a spiritual perspective. The conversations encompassed restorative practices, meditation, therapy and strategies to fortify their support systems. “These kinds of conversations are really helpful in reducing some of the stigmas and making sure that both faith communities and pastors receive the support that they need for their own physical, mental and spiritual body,” said Ken Jones, a Texas Health Behavioral Health clinical officer and elder at Keene Church of Seventh-Day Adventists.