Northbrook's Plena Mind Center Expands Kids' Specialized Care Program

NORTHBROOK, IL — A local pediatric mental health center that works with young people in dealing with various issues such as anxiety and mood disorders is expanding its services to work specifically working with younger patients who need more specialized care.

Plena Mind Center in Northbrook recently announced that its new Dragonfly program will provide mental health care for children between the ages of 6 and 10. The program will work with children who may be demonstrating disruptive, oppositional, and or aggressive behaviors at home, officials from the local care center said in a news release.

Medical professionals at the facility say that it is very common for these behaviors to not be an issue in a school setting. The goal of Plena’s Dragonfly program is to catch difficulties that these children may be experiencing early and then provide tools that the child’s family can use in helping the child cope with their condition.

Plena relies on a multidisciplinary team approach that provides evidence-based and personalized care for each child to ensure that each patient is getting the specialized care they need.

“Children and their families deserve to have good, holistic, and evidence-based treatment available to them,” said Dr. Firuza Aliyeva, the creator and Chief Medical Officer at Plena Mind Center. “As a mother and psychiatrist, I believe that keeping our children safe and healthy is the job of the whole community. At Plena, we promote that we are all in this together, and we hope to be able to provide resources to our community in all (acute) areas of mental health.”

The American Psychological Association’s special report released in January indicated that mental health-related emergency department visits have increased 24 percent for children between ages 5 and 11 and 31 percent for those ages 12 to 17 since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Plena opened in 2018 and is a pediatric mental health center focusing on anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, mood disorders, trauma, stress, school avoidance, and phobias. Plena offers intensive therapeutic services for children ages 6-18, including full-day programs and afterschool programs, and serves the entire greater Chicago area.