CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Corpus Christi Metro Ministries and Corpus Christi Police Department's Crisis Intervention Team have partnered up to create activity boxes for local emergency rooms.
The 'Psychiatric Activity Boxes' are designed to help those dealing with anxiety and stress as they wait to be examined. The activity boxes are filled with items like coloring pages, mazes, fidget poppers, playing cards and more. These boxes can have a calming effect and will help staff positively redirect behaviors.
CEO of Metro Ministries Patty Clark said it doesn't matter if patients are coming to an ER for a mental or medical health crisis, they're already anxious, but the activity box can be a stress reliever during the time they have to wait.
"So, if there is a way we can meditate that anxiety we want to do that," Clark said. "So just handing them the fidget to release that some of that stress and it goes out through the fingers and doesn’t stay in the mind."
Shea Miller is a crisis intervention officer with CCPD and she said they often bring people in who might be experiencing behavioral issues to the ER and they can be held at the hospital for up to 72 hours.
"They may or may not take it out on the hospital staff, so kind of depressurizing that, giving them some crayons, some coloring, cards, the poppets to kind of relief that stress and anxiety," Miller said.
Currently, the Psychiatric Activity Boxes are at the Spohn Shoreline ER but the organizations are planning to expand to all emergency departments across the Corpus Christi area.