Helping Young People and Their Families Navigate Mental Health Challenges

When standard outpatient treatment is no longer enough, the Hillside team are experts at providing the support our clients need.

Hillside is one of the leading mental health treatment providers for children, adolescents and families. We offer residential treatment as well as an extended Day Program on our beautiful campus in Atlanta and Intensive Outpatient services throughout the state of Georgia. We focus on offering the right level of care to meet the clinical needs of each client and family in order to help them heal and thrive.

Conditions We Treat

Depression

Hillside specializes in working with young people who experience an on-going struggle with depressive symptoms that create significant difficulty in their personal, family, social, educational, and/or other important areas of functioning.

Sixty percent of Hillside’s clients have a primary diagnosis of a severe major depressive disorder and many of these clients have more than one diagnosis.

A depressive episode can be categorized as mild, moderate, or severe – depending on the intensity of the symptoms as well as the impact on the individual’s day-to-day life. While many may experience a depressive episode only once in their life time, Hillside’s clients are typically young people who suffers from recurring depressive episodes, with moderate to severe symptoms.

Hillside offers therapeutic services that are designed to treat clients who have made little progress in standard outpatient services such as weekly talk therapy and/or outpatient psychiatric medication management.

More About Depression | Our Programs

Suicidality

Suicidality can vary in the expression and intensity, however, should never be taken lightly. In 2020, the CDC reported that suicide was the second leading cause of death among children ages 10-14 and third leading cause of death among young people, ages 15-24.

While people with active and imminent suicidality should first be evaluated and stabilized in acute inpatient psychiatric hospitals or crisis stabilization units, once stabilized, Hillside is a great option for treatment of suicidality in young people. With eighty percent of clients at Hillside reporting a history of suicide attempts, gestures, threats, or ideation, we are the expert at treating this population.

Our clinicians are effective with clients who expressed suicidal ideation for the first time as well as clients who struggle with on-going or chronic suicidal thoughts and gestures. We are able to address the suicidality while keeping in mind the safety aspect of each client through our variety of services, ranging from the least restrictive level of care in the home to 24/7 supervised setting,

Hillside’s specialty in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) targets suicidality in treatment and help each client build a life worth living.

Our Programs

Impulsivity

Impulsivity refers to the tendency to act without thinking. While it is common that there is an increase in impulsivity during the adolescent years, impulsivity can also be a feature of many different diagnoses such as a mood disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Hillside work with clients whose impulsivity is to the degree that often cause significant disruption in relationships, decreased academic performance, or even potential legal issues.  

Hillside offers interventions that are designed to work with clients to address their thinking, understand their emotions, increase their ability to cope, as well as manage their symptoms and behaviors.

More About Impulsivity | Our Programs

Anxiety

Our clinicians specialize in treating clients with excessive worry or avoidant behaviors-- which impacts academic performance, social interactions, and their sense of well-being. 

Anxiety disorders are characterized by the excessive fear and worry resulting in behavioral disturbances. The emotional response to real or perceived threats can cause physical sensation such as elevated heartrate, sweating, or shaking. While most people will experience some symptoms of anxiety in their lives. Hillside’s clients often experience significant impairment in their daily functioning due to the severity of their symptoms, such as the inability to go to school or maintain relationships.

Hillside offers interventions that are designed to work with clients to address their thinking, understand their emotions, increase their ability to cope, as well as manage their symptoms and behaviors.

More About Anxiety | Our Programs

Self-Harm

Self-harm or Non Suicidal Self Injury (NSSI) includes intentional actions to hurt oneself, such as cutting, scratching, biting, burning, or ingesting harmful items.  Engaging in self injurious behaviors is often one of the ways that people use to cope with unwanted emotions and typically is done without the intention to end one’s life.

While a person can engage in self harm without any intention of suicide, self harm is one of the predictors of suicide. Therefore, self-harm is one of the symptoms that points to the need for more intensive therapeutic treatment.

Hillside’s clinical team specializes in working with young people who struggle with self-harming behaviors, as seventy percent of Hillside clients reported NSSI in their history prior to engaging in treatment with us. Our clinicians will work alongside clients to gain more skills to cope with unwanted emotions, and help the family with safety planning and support for their loved ones. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is one of the most successful evidence-based treatments shown to be effective in treating self-injurious behaviors.

More About Self Harm | Our Programs

Emotional Dysregulation

Emotional Dysregulation refers to the inability to manage one’s emotions, which often are very intense and long lasting. The difficulty to control one’s emotional response creates a lot of psychological suffering for the person experiencing emotion dysregulation and often negatively impacts their relationships with loved ones.

Emotion dysregulation is a feature of many different diagnoses, including Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD) and Borderline Personality Disorder, or a symptom of a trauma response.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) has a curriculum that is dedicated to teaching clients how to understand their emotions and build a lifestyle that is less vulnerable to becoming dysregulated. The clinical team at Hillside will work with clients to gain more control over their emotions and behaviors, to fully experience the full range of their emotions without being controlled by their emotions.

More About Emotion Dysregulation | Our Programs

Our Programs

Each of our programs is designed with specific treatment goals and structure to meet the needs of our clients at varying level of clinical intensity.

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Residential
Treatment

Hillside’s Residential Program offers comprehensive residential treatment for young people whose behaviors and symptoms have not been able to be managed at a lower level of care or in the community. As the first residential treatment program to become a DBT-Linehan Board of Certification, Certified Program in the country, Hillside offers specialized treatment protocols for clients ages 11-17 in a 24/7 supervised and structured environment.

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DBT Day
Treatment

Experience DBT is a 30-day, intensive adolescent day treatment that features experiential, immersive, and comprehensive DBT programming for teens ages 13-17 in Atlanta, Georgia. The curriculum is grounded in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Social Emotional Ethical Learning (SEE Learning.) The treatment goals are for clients to acquire and effectively apply the skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, to feel and show empathy for self and others, and to establish and maintain relationships while living with their family.

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Intensive
In-Home Therapy

Hillside’s Intensive In-Home Therapy provides therapy and support services for children and their families in their own environment. The goal is to effectively meet the needs of the clients and their families where they are with creative and individualized therapeutic support. Our In-Home therapist will do whatever is clinically needed to help stabilize clients ages 6-24, along with their families, to prevent hospitalizations or ease the transition home from higher levels of care.

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Virtual Intensive
Outpatient Therapy

VIOP offers a minimum of six-weeks online intensive outpatient therapy designed for teens ages 13-17.  Our treatment addresses the causes and symptoms that are interfering with school, home, and interpersonal relationships. This program is available to clients throughout the state of Georgia and Florida.

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Why Hillside

Hillside is unique among mental health facilities for youth in Georgia that focuses on children, adolescents and young adults ranging in age from eleven to 24. Our services resolve family issues by helping children with mental illness move more successfully through adolescence into adulthood. With a staff fully trained in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), we successfully treat children who have not responded to other treatment modalities.

We offer community-based services and residential programs to reach children and teens where they are - at home, school and in the community.. The help we offer includes individualized treatment programs that also incorporate the family to build a complete wrap-around support structure and improved family dynamics.

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Our Impact

We treat each child and adolescent individually, tailoring an approach that includes a broad mix of evidence-based individual and group therapies that help our clients grow, recover, and reclaim their lives.

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of clients indicated that Hillside services helped them to manage their problems more effectively

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of clients had improvements in symptoms & functioning

Hillside Parents Say...

"You treated our family with complete respect and you were so patient with and responsive to all of our questions. The zooms for parents were so helpful. The skills you taught my child are incredible."

"Level of availability of the therapists was fantastic. Quick response times and always good suggestions on how to best support my child."

"Being supportive, encouraging and teaching our family how to navigate the issues. Also, helping set up the necessary team for continuation of services at home and advocating for her at school."

"You made my child feel accepted and taught her new skills to help cope with the mental issues she currently has."

"Communication and transparency were great! And trying different strategies for my child."

If you are looking for some awesome, knowledgeable people to work with, these are the guys I highly recommend. Their friendliness and result-driven approach is what I love about them.

"I’ve been very pleased with the program. Everything seemed to be handled well, communication, treatment, progress, etc."

"I would like to thank everyone at Hillside. You guys not only provided excellent care for my son but provided excellent care for me."

"Including parents in the process gives us the confidence and knowledge to make DBT a success at home as well. The parent training is essential."

"Excellent standard of care. Family therapist was always available and fully answered questions and responded to concerns."

"The staff is so compassionate. You can tell that everyone here truly cares about the patients and their families!"

"My child was kept safe the entire time, he was given individual attention and paired with a therapist who exceeded our expectations."

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My Hillside Experience

Hillside Blog

Generalized Anxiety Disorder vs. Major Depressive Disorder: How to Tell Them Apart

December 6, 2017

Understanding your diagnosis is an important part of getting the right treatment. Anxiety and depression are two common mental illnesses that often co-occur, meaning that many people may suffer from both disorders! Continue Reading

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How DBT Can Help Children & Adolescents Who’ve Experienced Trauma

November 16, 2017

The experience of trauma can bring about unwanted emotions and unhealthy ways to deal with the intense emotions. Parents may find it challenging to be supportive of their child when they see their child using maladaptive behaviors to cope with the unwanted feelings. Learn how DBT might be the right option for your child or teen!

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Warning Signs of Suicidal Behaviors in Youth

November 3, 2017

The threat of suicide is often one of the main concerns for families with loved ones struggling with depression. If your child has suicidal thoughts without active plans, an outpatient mental health facility & professional should be contacted right away. Hillside’s Day Treatment and Intensive Outpatient has clinicians who are skilled in working with children and adolescents who struggle with suicidal ideations. Read More

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Support Hillside

As a not-for-profit facility, Hillside relies on generous philanthropic support from individuals, families, corporations and foundations.

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