health and counseling edition - the Youth Advocacy Division

FALL 2008
COMMUNITY NOTEBOOK: HEALTH AND COUNSELING EDITION
(Continued from page 13)
Lindemann Mental Health Center. Evaluations are
often scheduled through the Call Center and
directed to one of these sites based on the
convenience of the location for the client.
Although connection with the Call Center is
preferred, both Urgent Care Centers are able to
accept walk-ins. Particularly for youth and
families, the Urgent Care Centers are the ideal
alternative to an unnecessary emergency room
visit. Boston emergency departments experience
an extremely high patient volume. Wait times for
a psychiatric evaluation are often upwards of four
hours. During that lengthy period of time, it can
RESOURCE
HIGHLIGHT
THE TRAUMA CENTER AT JUSTICE
RESOURCE INSTITUTE
The Trauma Center is a program of Justice
Resource Institute, a large nonprofit
organization dedicated to social justice by
offering hope and promise of fulfillment to
children, adults, and families who are at risk
of not receiving effective services essential
to their safety, progress, and/or survival. The
Trauma Center provides comprehensive
services to traumatized children and adults
and their families. Programming includes:
Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, prolonged
traumatic stress therapy, GLBTQ Program as
well as other outpatient mental health
services.
Trauma Center at
Justice Resource Institute
1269 Beacon Street
Brookline, MA 02446
(617) 232-1303
Intake: (617) 232-0687
be quite traumatizing, particularly for youth, to be
exposed to the sights and sounds of acute
medical emergencies. The Urgent Care Centers
offer extremely reduced waiting times, often
seeing referrals immediately upon arrival. The
waiting areas are much more pleasant offering
play space for families with children.
Whether it occurs at the Urgent Care
Center, the emergency department, or at the
youth’s school, once a referral is made, an
emergency services clinician will conduct a faceto-face
evaluation. The clinician will provide an
acute clinical risk assessment and individualized
diagnostic and treatment formulations.
Assessments include: presenting problems and a
narrative of how and why the youth is presenting
at this time; immediate safety concerns from the
points of view of the youth, guardians, and
referring parties; crisis precipitants; internal and
external supports; history of relevant past
symptoms; medical and substance abuse comorbidities;
relevant legal issues; school
performance; and current mental status exam.
Following the evaluation and consultation
with existing treatment providers, the clinician will
develop a treatment plan. Believing that youth
are best served by remaining in their communities,
BEST aims to provide the link to appropriate
community based treatment and supportive
services. A perfect example of one such service is
a Family Stabilization Team (FST). FST’s are viewed
to be particularly important for child and
adolescent populations as, frequently, ongoing
family problems perpetually drive crisis behaviors.
FST’s offer the possibilities of intervening on these
problems at their source, working within the family,
and responding directly to crisis both at home and
school. If it is determined that the youth cannot
be safely maintained in the community, even with
the support of community based services, BEST
would arrange for a more restrictive level of care,
such as a Community Based Acute Treatment
Program, or an inpatient psychiatric
hospitalization. Although these levels of care are
necessary to stabilize acutely psychiatrically-ill
patients, BEST seeks to expand relationships with
the community to encourage referrals prior to
such an extreme exacerbation of symptoms.
EVERY YEAR MORE THAN ONE MILLION
YOUTH UNDER THE AGE OF 18 COME IN
CONTACT WITH SOME ASPECT OF THE
JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM...UP TO 80%
HAVE DIAGNOSABLE MENTAL HEALTH
DISORDERS...MANY OF THESE CHILDREN
GO WITHOUT TREATMENT, BOTH IN THE
COMMUNITY AND DURING
INCARCERATION.
National Center for Mental
Health and Juvenile Justice, 2006
Adequately addressing mental health
issues in a pre-crisis stage prevents further
development of problematic behaviors that could
lead to school failure, involvement with the
juvenile justice system, or psychiatric
hospitalization. It also increases the likelihood that
community-based services will adequately
stabilize the situation. Youth-serving professionals
are encouraged to access services through the
BEST program whenever they believe a child or
adolescent may benefit from additional mental
health services. Call (800) 981-HELP (4357) to
access the range of services that the BEST
program provides. ◊
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