Parkridge Valley Child & Adolescent Campus

I was there for at least 5 days october 2019, probably the best time I’ve ever had, I left so happy and energized. I think about that place sometimes and I was just having a good time, the food there is good and the cafeteria has a lot of windows and sunlight, the lunch ladies are so sweet, the staff is amazing and caring, I loved it a lot. They actually care about the people there, they take lots of precautions and entertain people there, the staff is easy to get along with and you can just tell that they want to be there. I recommend this place 100%

I was here for around 8 days in July 2020. The staff is lovely and so supportive. If your child is in crisis or needs immediate help i definitely recommend parkridge, it’s the best mental hospital i’ve been to.

my sub-acute stay was atrocious and traumatizing. when a “group reset” was called we were denied of our ability to leave the unit at all and were refused the adequate amount of physical exercised we were promised & didn’t have access to meal options as other kids.nmy most vivid memory of Valley was whennALL PROTOCOL WAS VIOLATED in the case of a mental break down type situation. a young black girl was placed in “the summit”(the lower hallway) she was having a non-violent panic attack with yelling and crying. this was expected considering her history. instead of leading her to the designated area for episodes like these she was placed in the summit, the doors opening to the hallway were shut, and were kept closed. this violation was mostly led by the nurses, with no help from a social worker or any kind of therapist. a much older head nurse who (from all my stay observations) had a history of being verbally and physically aggressive towards patients, yelled at her that “she could come out when she could act her age” this isn’t a direct quote as this was about a year ago but it was definitely along those lines. the girl continued to yell about how she was going to kill herself, how badly she wanted to die, and begging to be let out. despite these alarming claims, she remained locked in that hallway for at least 30 minutes and received no face-to-face help from the trained nursing staff or technicians despite her not being aggressive. she was left completely alone in that hall until she cried herself into a lethargic state. it was truly heartbreaking to witness and cruel. it violated direct protocol and definitely could have been a racially charged decision as all of the white patients were always assisted with deescalating their break-downs. little to no observation was given to the girl while she was in the hallway alone and the only time they decided to speak to her was to insult her (“this is how 3 year old’s act” “you are being so dramatic”) or make indirect threats to her (“if you don’t stop right now you’re going to be staying a lot longer than you already are” “you’re not getting passes anytime soon”) which only made her panic worse. this was the worst instance i experienced in sub-acutenover-all the staff was pretty 50/50 on who was good and who was awful but you figured it out quickly. one of the male “adventure therapists” (i really don’t remember what they were called) insulted me when i wasn’t physically capable enough to preform in his activities due to my disabilities. nursing, the older techs, and activity therapist were on such a power-high that you just had to nod your head and take their disciplinary lectures so you wouldn’t get in trouble. they shouldn’t be working with traumatizes kids. during an acute stay, i told an older tech that i didn’t understand his lesson and needed help processing what he was teaching, his response was to put me out of group and on “temporary treatment only” (no speaking to other patients). this was out of nothing but disbelief that i “questioned” any of his teaching. and was disrespectful. almost every other tech in acute was an absolute blessing and i accredit most of my recovery to them.nthe school building was the most terrifying trip of the day. since most of the groups were in the same building at once, at least once a day a patient would have an anger out burst and disrupt the entire school. it was truly terrifying. the yelling and the banging was disruptive enough but if they got physical, all hell broke loose and it put you on a fearful edge.nthey claim the daily routine is part of healing for kids that have no stability. there’s a difference between creating a stable environment and having a militant, schedule that made you feel like a robot programmed to go through the day.nthere were some good days and some bad days. pool days, movie nights, some techs & holidays were fun in sub-acute, but the awful unbearable moments wildly out weighed the good. i still have flashbacks & triggers to my stays there, to this day. acute is tolerable. sub-acute is a nightmare.

I actually had a decent time. I was always in acute. I had been there about 20-30 times from 2013-2017. The only thing I didn’t like about it was the nurses day or night. I had a panic attack one day and couldn’t breathe and the nurses told me I was faking it. So I had to sit there in pain. OTHER THAN THAT, I had a great time. I always slept well, the staff members were so nice to me, the food is really amazing there. I recommend it as long as the nurses attitudes are changed.

Stayed there 2 days till I had to to leave because of getting sick but half the workers were so rude and I felt more like I was in a jail than a mental hospital. One of the guy workers yelled at a girl for smiling and I felt like if I did anything I’d be yelled at. It seems like when we would have fun they’d get on to us like we weren’t aloud to do anything. The whole purpose of us being there is to get help and to feel better, not be yelled at for everything. If I ever had to go back to a mental hospital, it wouldn’t be this one.