A pro golfer’s pledge of more than $5 million will help Augusta’s children’s hospital better treat patients with developmental challenges.
Aiken golfer Kevin Kisner and his wife, Brittany, a speech pathologist, will deliver the first ceremonial hammer swings on Monday to renovate space in Wellstar Children’s Hospital of Georgia to become the Kisner Foundation and Friends Center for Pediatric Behavioral Health and Wellness, the hospital announced Thursday.
The center’s name is big, but so is its mission. Access to developmental and behavioral health care for children and teens often has been outpaced by rising instances among young people nationwide of depression, lonelinress, trauma and anxiety.
About 1 in 6 children in America have a “treatable developmental disability,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Kisner Center is expected to provide “pediatric mental health services, including testing and treatment for mild behavioral issues as well as more complex diagnoses for children across Georgia,” the hospital said in a statement.
Wellstar Children’s has been providing many of these services, but the center will allow departments with similar missions to work in a single, collaborative space.
Wellstar hopes the new approach “will enhance collaboration among specialties and allow for expanded developmental-behavioral health services, increase psychiatry consultation services and promote comprehensive and timely care,” according to the hospital.
The couple formed the nonprofit Kevin and Brittany Kisner Foundation in 2016 to improve children’s well-being by partnering with Augusta-area charities and healthcare organizations focused on the same purpose.
Other donors to the center include Norfolk Southern, Atlanta Gas Light and the Walmart Community Foundation.
The Kisners have donated their foundation’s money to Augusta-area causes for the past several years.
In 2020, when the hospital sought support for its then-new program focused on pediatric behavioral health care, the Kisner Foundation donated $50,000 toward its development.
In 2018, the Kisners donated to University Hospital, now Piedmont Augusta, a $10,000 grant for the Mom’s Milk Program, which provides human milk to low-birth-weight infants in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.
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