UNM Hospital completes expanded children’s psychiatric center in Albuquerque

University of New Mexico Hospital completed its expanded children’s psychiatric center in Albuquerque with 36 inpatient beds ready now and room to grow to 52, a boost meant to add modern psychiatric care for children in Bernalillo County and across New Mexico. The ribbon-cutting Tuesday afternoon marked the finish of a two-year buildout at 1001 Yale Blvd. NE, with the center expected to begin serving patients in July.

The more than 32,000-square-foot facility is designed to treat children ages 2 to 18 and to provide specialized behavioral health emergency care, therapy, medication and counseling. UNM Health says it is the only children’s psychiatric center in New Mexico affiliated with an academic medical center, and the only facility in the state that cares for children with serious emotional disturbances regardless of a family’s ability to pay. Families are involved in educational and therapy sessions as needed, while staff work with community agencies and a child’s school to plan for discharge.

The center also connects inpatient care to education through UNM’s Mimbres School, so children can keep up with schoolwork during hospital stays. In the adolescent program, staff use dialectical behavioral therapy, one of the specialized approaches built into the new center’s care model. For a county where behavioral-health needs often spill into emergency rooms, that combination of beds, school support and discharge planning is meant to keep children from getting lost in a system that has long struggled to find enough psychiatric placements.

The project was financed through the 2022 Higher Education General Obligation Bond package, with state legislation authorizing $34 million for a children’s psychiatric center at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. UNM’s bond materials say the broader GO Bond 3 package passed in November 2022 with more than 60 percent voter support, underscoring how pediatric behavioral health has moved into the center of statewide policy debates. No tax increases were tied to the bonds.

Construction began in 2024 after UNM officials said at the October 28, 2024 groundbreaking that the project had been more than 10 years in the making and would take about two years. The new center does not solve the shortage of inpatient psychiatric care for children, but in a system where every bed can matter, it adds a purpose-built option for some of the region’s most vulnerable patients.