The Cleveland-based Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Foundation has awarded $5 million to University Hospitals of Cleveland to create an inpatient psychiatric unit for children and adolescents at Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital.

The new unit will address three urgent needs: Enable parents of a child experiencing a major psychiatric episode to focus on helping the child while learning the necessary steps in the treatment process; provide access to psychiatric evaluation and care for children brought to Rainbow with other medical illnesses that are complicated by psychological and emotional difficulties; and serve as an evaluation resource for parents whose children are suspended from school under "zero tolerance" rules for making violent or threatening remarks.

"University Hospitals is recognized as a national leader and a pioneer in child and adolescent behavioral health, and Rainbow is one of the premier children's hospitals in the nation," said Pamela A. Alexander of the Prentiss Foundation. "We believe that by adding an inpatient psychiatric facility, including a crisis team, at Rainbow, to the already nationally acclaimed psychiatry programs at University Hospitals, children and adolescents in Northeast Ohio will finally have easy access to the cutting-edge mental health care that they need and deserve."