The new Charlotte youth mental health facility will serve children as young as five years old, offering inpatient beds and urgent care services.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The founder of a new youth behavioral health facility in Charlotte is seeking solutions to the local mental health crisis through a center that will serve children as young as five years old.
The Katie Blessing Center, currently under construction on Central Avenue at Albemarle Road, will provide nearly 50 inpatient beds in its first phase, along with behavioral urgent care services when it opens next spring.
“We’ve always had a passion for children,” Michael Estramonte, founder of the Katie Blessing Foundation, said during Tuesday’s construction celebration.
Estramonte, who previously worked in the now-vacant building in the early 2000s when it was a clinic, said the idea came after conversations with local doctors.
“We ran into a couple doctors that work in local hospital systems, and they were talking about how they were having trouble in these emergency departments waiting for not just days but sometimes weeks, waiting for a mental health bed, or behavioral health bed for kids going through psychiatric crisis,” Estramonte said. “When this facility opens, we’re really, really excited that it’s actually going to take some of the pressure off the emergency departments, not just regionally here in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, but across the entire state.”
The facility will serve boys and girls ages 5 to 17 and include a kitchen, wardrobe center, gym, various forms of therapy, and tutoring. Organizers hope it will address troubling mental health statistics.
“One out of every four kids have thoughts of suicidal ideation. For every 100,000 people in North Carolina, there’s only 11 psychiatrists,” Estramonte noted. “It’s just something that needs to be paid attention to, and right now, one of the missions at the Katie Blessing Center isn’t just to solve the problem here and now; we want to help establish the next generation of behavioral health professionals.”
The nonprofit is partnering with local hospitals, along with city and state leaders, on the project. Those interested in supporting the initiative can visit katieblessing.org for more information.
If you or a loved one are facing thoughts of suicide or self-harm, there is help readily available. You can call Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat with them online. There are also resources in North Carolina available here and in South Carolina available here.
Contact Kayland Hagwood at khagwood@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
