Hospital for kids

I've recently been doing work at a psychiatric hospital for kids. This is a post about it.
We go to a hospital that helps kids up to the age of 15. They can house up to 50 kids, but right now there are only 13. They stay for up to six months, then go back home or back to their orphanage. It is not uncommon for the kids to return to the hospital, though. Sometimes more than once.
In theory, the hospital can serve kids who have all kids of mental difficulties. 90% of the kids there now only have behavioral problems and/or minor developmental disabilities. In fact, most of the kids seem quite normal, if a bit attention deficit. If a kid's parents, teacher, or orphanage staff thinks he or she needs psychiatric help, they send them for a check up with a doctor. That doctor can send them to a clinic, and if the clinic decides it is necessary, the kid will go to live at the hospital. While they are there, the kids undergo play, art, and conversational therapy. Most of them are also medicated. They spend most of their day hanging out, playing or reading, watching TV, doing lessons (during the school year), and doing chores. When we go to the hospital, we do a craft with them, play board games or card games, then some of them are allowed outside to play basketball, frisbee, etc. Some of them have to stay in because they have a history of running away (from the hospital, from home, from their orphanage, from wherever). It is a shame to leave the others inside, so when we have a lot of volunteers at the hospital, some of us stay in and play indoor games with the indoor kids. I think what we do is useful. The kids get an opportunity to socialize and to get out of the regular routine. They have fun. They also get hugs from us.
The hardest thing about going to hospital for kids is knowing that most of them have problems that could have been prevented. I think that most of their behavioral issues are due to the stress of living in a low-income household or with alcoholic or abusive parents. Most of them are genuinely normal kids. It sucks that they are institutionalized. I don't mean to suggest that in America we have a better solution for kids with similar problems. Though we don't necessarily have hospitals for them, they might go to homes for "at-risk youth" or something, and that is only sometimes better. I really shouldn't cast any judgment because I don't know much about problems common to adolescents and how to solve them.
Mostly I think they need to be treated like normal kids and allowed to have fun. I enjoy hanging out with them not just because I like playing Uno, but also because I think that casual socialization does them some good.