A new model for children’s mental health care, developed over 130 years

What is today Clarity Child Guidance Center was founded in 1886 when 13 caring women met in the Maverick Hotel in downtown San Antonio to form the Protestant Home for Destitute Children. Over the years we found that the children who were not adopted or returned to their families were experiencing mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders. Through caring for those kids we evolved to become the premier resource for children in need of mental health treatment – Clarity Child Guidance Center.

Today, Clarity CGC is the only not-for-profit in South Texas providing a continuum of mental health care for children ages 3-17 experiencing serious mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders. We are a teaching hospital for University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio child and adolescent psychiatry residents and first-year pediatric students at the Baylor College of Medicine

Our staff of more than 300 provides 24/7 care and services that include assessments (psychiatric, developmental, and neuropsychological) and individual, family, and group therapy. Intensive services include day treatment and acute inpatient care at our children’s psychiatric hospital. Wraparound supports include case management for families as well as education continuation for our patients via our on-campus school through a school district partnership. Art, music, and play therapy are also integrated into our treatment plans through a program we call Play With Purpose.™

During ScienceWriters2016, Soad Michelsen, MD, Clarity CGC senior medical director, will lead a tour of our campus, discuss our Claritycare™ treatment model and share her insight on the cultural impacts of mental illness on today’s children.

Rebecca Helterbrand
Senior Vice President of Marketing and Resource Development
Clarity Child Guidance Center