Mental Health Chapter Action Kit: Assess the Service Environment

​Because many families are unsure where to turn when their child has a serious behavioral or substance abuse episode, families often bring their child to the emergency department (ED) for help. EDs are often poorly equipped to handle these situations; furthermore, children may be traumatized by their experience in an ED. State chapters can advocate for mental health crisis services that are appropriate for children and adolescents. This may include mobile crisis units that serve a region by sending licensed mental health personnel to meet the child and family in a pediatric office, at school, or at home; or a 24/7 behavioral health facility that is prepared to triage and manage children in crisis.

​Re​sources/Tools​​:

​Considerations in Developing Community Children’s Mental Health Emergency Service Protocols

​Partner with local United Way agencies and other groups to support advocacy and programmatic efforts to implement and maintain 2-1-1 Information and Referral Centers, and to include information about mental health, developmental and substance abuse treatment referral sources that are relevant to pediatricians.

​Re​sources/Tools​​: ​

List of Local United Way Organizations
Example:​ ​Connecticut – Mobile Crisis Intervention Service

Encourage the development of community-based mental health service and resource directories by working with state health and human service organizations (see above); state associations of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and counselors; and information and referral centers to inform, develop and maintain directories of mental health, developmental and substance abuse treatment referral sources that are relevant to pediatricians.

​Re​sources/Tools​​:

​Community Mental Health Resource Directory Guidance & Template
Example:​ ​Kansas – KidLink website
​Utah – Medical Home Portal

​Recommend that state mental health agencies and other relevant state agencies (eg, public health agencies) include information about how to access community-based mental health services for children on their websites and in other relevant materials and dissemination mechanisms. Ideally, information should be posted in multiple languages to the extent possible.

Collaborate with the state mental health agency and other key state agencies (eg, public health, Early Intervention programs, Head Start, the state department of public instruction, the state department of social services, the state department of health and human services, the juvenile justice system) to fund and conduct statewide and community-based studies that examine the availability and accessibility to mental health professionals (eg, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, developmental specialists, adolescent specialists) who serve children and their families; crisis services for children and adolescents; provider shortage areas; and the implications of the findings for the primary care system.

Note that school-based and school-employed personnel (eg, social workers, psychologists, guidance counselors) are key de facto sources of mental health services in most regions of the country. As such, they are important elements in the service environment.

​Re​sources/Tools​​: ​

Community Mental Health Resource Directory Guidance & Template
​Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Evidence-Based Practices Resource Center