Strawberry Hill Campus 901 North 5th Street, Kansas City, KS 66101

"My loved one was having severe psychosis, and needed medication stabilization. Strawberry Hill is different. The doctor waited to get a CORRECT diagnosis, then administered the lowest dose possible to get her stabilized. The group therapy has helped her immensely, and they've helped with setting up after care for out patient services. I would recommend them for anyone that needs mental health help."

"Overall, the experience there was a good one. My loved one got the help and resources she was seeking. Going into the inpatient process, I did not have good expectations due to the societal stigma around mental hospitals. Thankfully, the staff were mostly respectful and receptive to my desire to hear how my loved one was doing. Please bear in mind, the individuals going through the inpatient process need to fill out the proper paperwork and a give you a "code" for you to be able to contact them or receive updates. This is for the protection of those staying there. Many individuals are recovering from trauma at home and this process helps to isolate them from that. There does seem to be poor communication at times between night and day shift, as messages left for patients at night may not make it to the day shift personnel and then to your loved one. The only major concern I have is that one of the night shift personnel seems to be inexperienced when it comes to protocol. I called one night at 1am (due to being out of the country for work) as I was told that the phone line can be called 24/7 for updates on your loved one (This is still true). When I called that night, I asked the man on shift if he could provide an update on my loved one and read the staff's notes on her file, he said "No you can't do that, it's one in the morning". He then hung up on me before I could respond. I attempted to call back but the call wasn't answered. Aside from that one hiccup, my loved one's stay at this location was smooth, and the staff were respectful to her. All the other staff I had asked updates from were very kind and understanding of the position my loved one and I were in. As far as medication goes, I can at least speak for our experience and say that they were not forced or coerced into taking medication. They said up front that they did not want to take medication, and although it was suggested, it was never forced upon them. I've noticed that other reviews mention that the staff here at this location seem to rush patients out the door. There does seem to be validity to this as my loved one experienced this as well. My advice would be to plan where you or loved one will go after being discharged. I also want to point out that at many other organizations, it is standard for the staff to begin discharge planning the moment the patient arrives. In the case of my loved one, she didn't know when she was being discharged until the day of."

"We were so desperate for help for our beautiful, funny, intelligent, hardworking, creative adult son. Psychiatrists and therapists told us he should be hospitalized. He was suicidal and had so much anxiety he could not leave the house. We talked him into going to the hospital. It was one of the worst mistakes we have ever made. When we called they said they had private rooms, individualized therapy and he would not have to go through the emergency room to be admitted. We finally talked him into going to the hospital because we were so worried for him. We had tried everything else. Several therapists, several psychiatrists, and lots of types of medication with no help. The “experts” all said he should go to the hospital. Our son went in on a Thursday. He got very little help until Monday. (The lesson here is don’t have a mental health crisis close to the weekend.) Part of his illness is that being around people makes him feel suicidal, but when he wanted to stay in his room, they physically pulled him out of his room and locked him out of it. The psychiatrist tried to give him medicine based on a diagnosis from seven years earlier. Our son said he wanted to be retested. They did not do it and wanted to base his new medication off that very old diagnosis from when he was in high school. There was very little individual therapy and no helpful group therapy unless petting a dog will solve all your problems. When a psychiatrist or therapist would check on him they would see him for about two minutes. He voluntarily admitted himself, but when he realized that this place was not going to help him they would not let him leave. He ended up staying there for five days against his will. All they wanted to do was medicate him. My son did not want to take medicine. He has tried many different kinds and has had horrible side effects from them. They had no help for him if he did not want to take medicine. After he got out of the hospital we finally found a psychiatrist who would do gene testing. (This was after he was prescribed medicine that he turned out to be highly allergic to.) We found out that he metabolizes medicines differently than most people and most psychiatric medicines will not work for him. Strawberry Hill had no help for him if he wasn’t willing to take medicine. When our son was finally able to leave the hospital, he was so much worse. He was more suicidal and now sees all people in the mental health field as all bad. He has given up any hope of getting help from psychiatrists and therapists. We have nowhere to turn anymore, and the way he was treated at the hospital caused this. We have lost all faith in the mental health field. We have lost faith in psychiatrists, therapists, and medicine. None of it has helped and my son has begged for help all along. There has been no individualized care. From incredibly long wait times for appointments to no calls back, it seems to him that no one cares about what happens to him. It has been horrific. We were so desperate for help when we suggested he go to the hospital. It was so hard for us to send him there. And then to have him be so much worse when he got out is heartbreaking. He feels like no one cares about him because he has not been able to find help that is help. We have lost all faith in the mental health system and now have nowhere to turn. When he was released from the hospital, his caseworker from Strawberry Hill was supposed to call him in a week to see how he was doing. He never got a call. We tried to call his caseworker several times and never got a call back. One more instance of them not caring and not providing help—in fact, making his situation much, much worse."

"Called multiple times to visit/call my fiancé and they will not let me. And they’re trying to act like he didn’t check in here when he told me strawberry hill is where is going before he checked in. Don’t recommend going here at all."

"My wife just completed a 30-day "stay" at KU's Strawberry Hill mental "health" facility. Last night, with freezing rain, they gave her a taxi voucher and discharged her, without a "safe" place to go. Despite the fact her trauma stems from childhood trauma resulting from growing up with an angry and abusive drunk father, that's where they pushed her to go, without any pre-arrangement. She ended her cab ride at his house. He wasn't home or he chose to not answer the door. Despite an Order of Protection keeping her away from our house and family, she believed she had no place else to go. With no money and no working phone, she walked 11.5 miles from Merriam to Western Shawnee, in the freezing rain. She walked in the door hypothermic and with bleeding blisters on her feet. Coming home was not an option and her "case manager" at KU Strawberry Hill was well-aware. I patched her up, let her sleep on the couch and took her to the ER of a real hospital. KU Strawberry Hill kicked my wife, the mother of our children, to the curb - without any regard for her safety. My children are traumatized, to say the least. Any progress achieved over the last 30 days of her hospitalization has been entirely eviscerated. She's actually more suicidal since she was kicked out yesterday. She just uses different words to express that. Her "case manager" at Strawberry Hill, Stephanie Mayberry, said she tried placing her in a long-term mental health nursing facility however, was unsuccessful as she doesn't seem to be familiar with the necessary steps to qualify such an inpatient arrangement and get it done. She told my wife she had a place lined up only to explain there was a "miscommunication." KU Strawberry Hill and her treatment team is incompetent and seemingly incapable of addressing serious mental health concerns such as my wife experiences. This was her third "stay" there. Despite having a DPOA for my wife, I was left almost entirely out of her discharge planning (no meeting, just a phone call threatening to discharge my wife "to the street" if I didn't pick her up). They were acutely aware of the Order of Protection, as her "case manager" was present on the video call court appearance. The "case manager" told the judge she had a transfer working and anticipated it would take a week for the transfer. KU Strawberry Hill's, and their staff's, willful negligence has traumatized my entire family and left my wife more unstable than she was when she was admitted. Their actions are unconscionable and reprehensible."