Southern Adventist University student Mark Childress prepares to paint a wall of the Parkridge psychiatry holding room.When Mark Childress' grandmother became ill and moved in with his family, he had no idea how it would influence his life even years later - and the lives of many others.
Childress and his mother, Pat, cared for the aging matriarch around-the-clock, and that experience inspired him to enroll in Southern Adventist University's RN-MSN medical program. There, Childress and two classmates embarked on a class-inspired project that is making a difference in the lives of Parkridge Main Campus psychiatry patients.
As a community project requirement, Childress and friends Brian Hustad and Mark Owens, who all worked in the Parkridge Emergency Room, developed a concept to paint the "secure room" with a soft blue chalkboard paint. With many psychiatry patients kept there for two to five days, the combination of the soothing color and the ability to draw with chalk would give patients an outlet for self-expression, the three theorized.
Their class's new community project parameters were loose, specifying only that students should find a community problem and suggest a way to solve it.
But the trio took the project past its required conceptual stage and received permission to paint the room - making the Parkridge facility the first in the area to feature this approach to psych care.
Since the implementation of their idea, Childress said, patients have thanked them and the number of outbursts has decreased.
"We used to hear quite frequently that patients felt like caged animals or that they felt no one cared about their feelings," said Childress. " Now they have a positive way to express themselves."
Childress joined the SAU program after beginning as a nurse assistant. By 2020, he will have his master's degree, with this and other similar community projects as his capstone.
Eventually, he said he'd like to earn a P.h.D, but until then, he is happy to continue his work as a nurse assistant.
"I basically get to do what I love with people I love," Childress said.