Specialized mental health care can be difficult to access, particularly if you’re a child navigating traumatic events and family separation.
Research shows children in foster care have higher rates of mental health disorders than children in the general population. That’s why we are heartened by a state grant of $1.75 million toward a Dallas-area initiative to support children in crisis and their caregivers. This funding will be used by the North Texas Behavioral Health Authority to launch a program known as Youth Crisis Outreach Team Plus, which is designed to help children who need immediate mental health intervention.
The team will focus on children ages 3 to 17, including those in foster care or those at risk of entering state supervision. Other local behavioral health authorities across the state also received grants to create these teams.
Navigating a mental health crisis can be scary both for the child and the caregiver. Sometimes traumatic events such as abuse, domestic violence or physical assault are at the root of the crisis. But sometimes a crisis happens when a bunch of stressors pile up.
Because it specializes in youth and family systems, the new team is different from the Mobile Crisis Outreach Team, or MCOT, which serves the general population. Jessica Martinez, chief of clinical operations at North Texas Behavioral Health Authority, said the MCOT provides assistance only during the mental health crisis and then refers individuals back to their primary providers.
But the new youth team will work with school districts, juvenile probation officials, law enforcement officers, mental health providers and state child welfare workers to provide trauma-informed services. These services include crisis stabilization, care in case of relapse and the development of a safety plan, Martinez said.
The inspiration for the youth crisis response team came from Connecticut, according to Martinez. Connecticut has a crisis response network with 14 teams throughout the state. Researchers found that youths who received help through Connecticut’s mobile crisis teams were 22% less likely to visit an emergency room within 18 months after their intervention compared to peers who had initially gone to the ER for psychiatric treatment.
That’s another upside of this new program. It should provide relief to overcrowded Texas emergency rooms and the state’s overwhelmed foster care system.
People suffering from a mental health crisis often end up in emergency rooms, even though these are not meant to provide specialized psychiatric care. An ER visit might lead to a long wait to be transferred to a mental health hospital. In North Texas and across the state, there aren’t enough psychiatric beds to meet the demand.
Susan Garnett, CEO of My Health My Resources of Tarrant County, said Youth Crisis Outreach teams throughout Texas will begin offering services starting in September. Caregivers can call their local mental health authority’s crisis number to request assistance during the team’s operational hours.
Texas needs a sense of urgency around helping children in crisis now so that they can become stable adults. The Youth Crisis Outreach Team Plus program is worth trying.
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