Shodair Children’s Hospital may be headquartered in Helena, but its footprint for helping kids is statewide.
Leaders say last year, they served kids and families in 54 of Montana’s 56 counties.
Now, they’ve expanded their outpatient clinic in Great Falls with the addition of children’s psychiatric services.
Working with Benefis Health System, Shodair’s Great Falls outpatient clinic offers valuable in-person and virtual psychiatric consultations.
Since March, Shodair Staff Psychiatrist, Dr. Deanna Armstrong has been leading the effort.
“I was really excited about the prospect of working with them and working with an organization that is primarily focused on helping children and adolescents with behavioral health needs,” said Dr. Armstrong.
Dr. Armstrong has spent most of her more than 30 year professional career in Texas. Most recently she served as staff psychiatrist at the Billings Behavioral Health Clinic remotely.
In her role, Dr Armstrong will do medication management visits with children and adolescents mostly from the Great Falls area. She says while more nurse practitioners are entering the field, it's still an underserved group.
“I've seen such an increase since COVID and the needs for children to get treatment in Montana,” said Armstrong. “Being a rural state makes it tougher.”
“Early intervention is really, really important for understanding and identifying underlying mental health issues,” said Shodair’s Director of Outpatient Resources Tricia Wagner. “Really, it can set the tone for people reaching out as adults to get help and treatment.”
Armstrong says there can be a stigma attached to child psychiatric services for adolescents, but more people are beginning to understand the need.
“Sometimes they don't want to engage in outpatient therapy or don't want to take medications for ADHD,” said Armstrong. “There is still some stigma, but I think it's much less than it was a few years ago.
Dr. Armstrong’s office is located in the Benefis Women’s and Children’s Center. It’s a partnership she’s excited to be a part of.
“I think the mental health needs of children and adolescents in the community is very important to both organizations,” said Armstrong. “I'm hopeful that we'll be able to complement the services that each of us are offering and make it easier when children do need to be admitted to Shodair. It will make that whole process easier, less time consuming, and then having close follow up when kids return home.”
“I just think that you can't go wrong with blending two different kinds of pediatric specialties in one place,” said Wagner.
Armstrong also appreciates getting to work in the relatively new Benefis Women’s and Children’s Center.
“It's a beautiful facility and it's light and bright and everything's here in one place. Occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy and general pediatric care,” said Armstrong. “I can just walk down the hall and check in with [a] pediatrician about referral questions or medical questions that I might have so that it's just really nice to have it all here in one place.
Shodair’s services also include monthly genetics clinics in Great Falls.
