Christchurch youth mental health facility opens its doors

• A new mental health facility is opening for young people in Christchurch.
• It cost an estimated $16m to build.
• About 640 young people can be treated every month.
• Canterbury's Child, Adolescent and Family outpatient service will move from The Princess Margaret Hospital and Hillmorton.

A new outpatient mental health facility for young people in Christchurch is officially opening its doors on Friday.

Kahurangi is a facility for children and young people up to 18 years of age, and is located near Hillmorton Hospital. It has the capacity to treat 640 young people every month.

Kahurangi means "blue skies" and it will be home to Canterbury's Child, Adolescent and Family outpatient service. It replaces previous facilities at The Princess Margaret Hospital and Hillmorton.

The old facilities at Princess Margaret were built in the 1950s, and clinical psychologist Amy Edwards previously told RNZ they were far from ideal.

Kahurangi has dedicated outpatient physio treatment spaces, sensory rooms, observation spaces for assessments, play, and family therapy rooms, private entrances for emergency presentations, group therapy rooms, and a whānau room.

The Canterbury District Health Board (now Health New Zealand) had asked Māia Health Foundation to commit some funding to a new outpatient facility, as funding had been confirmed for the development of a new inpatient facility but, at the time, there had been no provision made for outpatient services.

The foundation committed to raising $6m for the project, which cost about $16m in total to build.

Foundation chair Garth Gallaway said the commitment was a "leap of faith" but was made knowing how dire the existing services were.

"'Id be lying if I said we weren't daunted by the task ahead of us - $6 million is an enormous amount of money, however the need in our community was equally as enormous.

"We had faith that the Canterbury community would join us in this mission and that's exactly what this community has done. It's phenomenal."

The foundation had help from New Zealand Community Trust and the Rātā Foundation.

A former patient also pitched in with fundraising efforts to plug a $1m shortfall..

Canterbury's Child, Adolescent and Family service manager Deborah Selwood said the building was stunning.

"Kahurangi shows our tamariki and rangatahi that their community cares. It shows our young people that we see them, have listened to their views and thought carefully about what is therapeutic, and we've then put that into this beautiful, intentionally designed building."

The CAF service has seen a 157 percent increase in clinical interactions over the last decade, as well as a 36 percent increase in emergency assessments from 2020 to 2023.

The the service sees an average of 72 emergency presentations each month.

Selwood said staff were buzzing about the new facility.

"We have specialist rooms for everything we need - like a sensory room, physio room and group therapy room - and it's all in one building. All the time we used to spend driving across town, between sites, will be gone and the support we can provide across the team will be enhanced.

"It's going to make an enormously positive impact on the care and experience we can provide our young people."

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