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COMMUNITY
Skyland Trail focusing on
young adults
BY DAN WHISHT
danwhisenhunt@reporternewspapers.net
The vibe around Skyland Trail feels
more like a college campus than a center
for treating mental illnesses, and a rise in
young adult patients is shaping the mental
health centers future.
At Skyland’s campus on North Dru
id Hills Road in Brookhaven, patients
sit in classrooms where they learn about
life-coping skills. They call group thera
py “class” and call counselors “teachers.”
There are dorm-like residences located off
site and a cafeteria at the main campus.
There’s even a community garden that pro
vides the feeling of a quad, a shared green
space where residents and their counselors
can mingle.
There’s a fitness center and a primary-
care doctor on site. Patients plant gardens.
They paint. They make music. On May
3, the center will host Arts in the Garden,
celebrating the creativity of people who
have a mental illness.
“We have seen just a huge increase in
referrals from college campuses across the
country of young adults who are troubled,
who are being sent home to get their men
tal health issues treated,” said Elizabeth
Finnerty, president and CEO of Skyland
Trail.
Skyland treats 300 to 400 patients each
year, spokeswoman Shannon Easley said,
and offers both residential and day-treat
ment programs. Its current operating bud
get is $10.5 million, and there is around
$ 1 million in financial aid available for pa
tients who qualify. Skyland is the business
name of the George West Mental Health
Foundation, a nonprofit.
Finnerty has the benefit of histori
cal perspective, having been in charge of
Skyland from its beginning in 1989. Back
then, the center saw mosdy older adults
with disorders like schizophrenia, a con
dition where patients experience power
ful delusions. Today, half of Skyland’s cli
ents are young adults, age 18 to 25, and
Finnerty said most are struggling with a
mood disorder.
According to data provided by Sky
land, 45 percent of patients are diagnosed
as bipolar and 36 percent are diagnosed as
depressed.
There are a number of factors behind
the population shift, Finnerty said. The
Patient Protection and Affordable Care
Act, sometimes referred to as Obamacare
because it was President Barack Obama’s
signature legislative accomplishment, be
came law in 2010. Under the new law, par
ents can keep their children covered un
der their insurance plans until age 26. In
2010, 39 percent of Skyland’s admissions
were 18 to 25 year olds. Today, 50 percent
of admissions fall into this age group.
Finnerty said the change in the law has
been one of the reasons Skyland is treating
more college students.
“I think that certainly it has a hand in
it,” Finnerty said. “That has been great for
that population. It is great to treat them
early on.”
Finnerty said students today are ex
periencing their first symptoms of men
tal illness when they move away to at
tend college. The signs begin to appear
in the freshman and sophomore years,
she said.
“When a young adult leaves home for
the first time and they’re going off to col
lege, they don’t have that structure and sup
port that mom and dad have given them
for so long,” Finnerty said. “For those who
have poor coping mechanisms, or they’ve
never really developed good coping mech
anisms, being left to their own devices in a
college environment is very stressful.”
The American Psychiatric Association,
which supported the healthcare reforms,
said the new healthcare law includes sev
eral changes that will benefit people who
have mental illness or substance abuse
problems. The ability of parents to keep
their children on their insurance plans lon
ger allows for the earlier diagnosis of men
tal illnesses that begin to develop in ado
lescence.
Under the law, insurers cannot exclude
or discriminate against people with men-
20 | APRIL 19— MAY2,2013 | www.ReporterNewspapers.net