I was 15 years old when i went there last November.
First and foremost, they WILL keep you there for longer than your baker act, and if you don’t sign a voluntary form after the first 72 hours, they will threaten to re-baker -act you.
I was there on a baker act for a suicide attempt, as I am honestly a very dramatic person and have had multiple attempts in the past. I was only supposed to be there on my baker act. I talked to the nurses and the male doctor about wanting to get out, because this place was so hectic it made my mental state even worse than it already was when I first arrived. The doctor thoroughly denied my request, saying I needed more care than I had already received. The doctor there was one of the rudest people I have ever met, and to be rude to CHILDREN who are struggling with their mental health already, is just inhumane. They had also denied my mother’s attempts to retrieve me after the end of my initial baker act.
You get one phone call a day, for 10 minutes only. You get one visitation a week for around 20-30 minutes only as well. They don’t honestly do anything about other children’s behavior. I witnessed a little boy punch a girl in the face just for a small argument, and they only took away one day of the boy’s outside time, and they put the girl right back in the same facility after being checked out in the emergency room, with the same boy who had just assaulted her. During yoga the next day, two girls jumped another little boy for simply making noise. They also did not seperate them from the other children for more than an hour, and they acted like everything was normal.
My worst experience was my roommate,
I had woken up in the middle of the night to the girl standing above my bed and just staring at me, and of course this is a hospital full of mentally unwell people, so I got up and started walking to the bathroom (which has little privacy. no locks, and a door like a bathroom stall with an entire foot of space between the bottom of the door and the floor) and this girl didn’t say anything, and pulled my hair from behind. We got into a physical fight and got separated from eachother. The faculty did not make any room adjustments. They do not even give you water bottles, and you have to get permission to get up and go get water. Sometimes it’s profusely denied.
In moving from the temporary unit to go outside or to the gym, the adult unit was very visible and they would look at us through their windows and make creepy gestures and faces at us.
The nurses were the only people who were actually nice. They played music per child request if the music wasn’t vulgar during outside time, and they played sports with us in the gym. They would also make jokes with us.
That was about the only good thing about this unit.
All in all, please if your child gets baker acted, deny sending them to suncoast at all costs. Even if it’s the closest option. Your child will be traumatized. After this trip to the hospital, I vowed to myself that I would do everything it takes to never go to this one again, if I did have to go to one.
PS: they don’t follow up with therapy. It costs so much money to even try to enroll your child in therapy through suncoast.
