Mission Statement
The mission of Saint Elizabeths Hospital is to provide the highest quality of integrated mental health services to adults with mental disorders who require psychiatric hospitalization and to facilitate their continuing recovery and return to the community. Saint Elizabeths Hospital trains health and mental health clinicians and students who work with mental health consumers to provide compassionate and optimal care.
The mission of the Volunteer Services Department is to offer an extra dimension of care, enrichment, and service to clients, their families, and visitors; to provide support and assistance to the Hospital staff; and to strengthen the ties between the Hospital and the community it serves.
Description
Founded in 1852, Saint Elizabeths Hospital is the State mental hospital for the District of Columbia. There are approximately 400 women and men in our care, divided between civil and court-ordered programs.
In recent years, Saint Elizabeths has gained a renewed sense of mission, implementing a series of reforms and initiatives to improve the quality of care and to more effectively reintegate people into the community. One such reform is person-centered treatment planning, a holistic, individualized approach to mental health treatment that seeks to utilize each person's strengths and available supports. The Hospital has also reinvigorated its clinical training programs in psychology, psychiatry, clinical pastoral care, dentistry, and medicine.
A key part of the Hospital's renewal is the participation of members of the community as visitors and as volunteers.
Early in 2010, Saint Elizabeths will move into a new, state-of-the-art building that will further improve the quality of its services.
