Topic: Healing Environments, Safer Rooms: Aligning Trauma-Informed Design, Ligature Resistance, 
and the Next Generation of Behavioral Health Design

This session will illustrate how trauma-informed priorities such as clear risk zoning, supportive sightlines, and calibrated sensory environments can coexist with ligature-resistant detailing and non-institutional aesthetics in patient rooms, toilet rooms, and shared spaces. 
Rather than prescribing a single approach, the presenter will share lessons learned from balancing safety, ADA accessibility, and therapeutic milieu within tight capital and operational constraints.
The session will also preview how evolving behavioral health language and AHJ expectations are reshaping modernization strategies for existing units. Attendees will see how these regulatory shifts can be translated into a pragmatic, phased roadmap that aligns risk reduction, capital planning, and a more humane experience for patients and staff.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of this program, participants will be able to:

1. Identify and evaluate trauma-informed design principles—including risk zoning, sightline strategies, sensory modulation, and material selection—that can be applied to aging behavioral health units to improve patient safety and reduce re-traumatization risk.
2. Analyze current ligature-resistant product categories and detailing strategies for patient rooms, toilet rooms, and shared spaces, and assess their effectiveness in balancing safety performance with ADA accessibility requirements and non-institutional aesthetics.
3. Compare behavioral health provisions in the 2018 and 2022 FGI Guidelines with proposed changes anticipated in the 2026 edition, and evaluate how evolving requirements for safety risk assessments, crisis unit design, and ligature-resistant environments will affect renovation scope and AHJ coordination.
4. Develop a phased modernization framework for an aging behavioral health unit that sequences trauma-informed upgrades, ligature-resistant retrofits, and code-compliance milestones into a prioritized roadmap aligned with capital planning constraints and anticipated regulatory changes.

Presenter: Andrew Mitchell

Andrew Mitchell is a Principal at MKM architecture + design, an award-winning architecture, planning, and 
interior design firm dedicated to improving the health and well-being of the communities in which they live and 
work.
Andrew enjoys working with clinical teams to optimize workflows and improve overall health and well-being. 
Board certified by the American College of Healthcare Architects (ACHA); Andrew has experience in all aspects 
of the care continuum. He strives to bring fresh ideas, expand critical thinking, and convey an innovative 
perspective to his clients and the communities that they serve.
Andrew has presented at national and regional healthcare conferences over the past 15 years, sharing 
expertise on topics such as Evidence Based Design, Rural Health, Emergency Department Design, and Critical 
Access Hospitals.