At one of the country’s largest behavioral health centers devoted entirely to children and adolescents, Nationwide Children’s Hospital incorporates the latest insights from neuroscience to provide holistic care for a sensitive patient population.

To provide care where it is needed most, adjacent to transit and where people live and work, the Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion consolidates a comprehensive suite of acute behavioral health services — such as a psychiatric crisis center, inpatient and crisis stabilization unit — with partial hospital programs, outpatient services and research on Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s urban campus in Columbus, Ohio.

The interior design incorporates insights from neuroscience research, which has proven that stress and anxiety — a particular concern for this patient population — can be reduced by providing access to light and nature, curved surfaces, and opportunities to form relationships with other people. In particular, two landscaped courtyards and a play area give patients and their families a range of outdoor environments, from active to calm, in which to heal and find respite amidst nature.

The result balances the needs of solitude and security with those of interaction and autonomy, to create an uplifting environment that provides a sense of normalcy for adolescents and children with behavioral health needs.