“I think the most important thing is to talk to someone,” said Dr. Kelly Blankenship, the division chief of psychiatry at Dayton Children’s.
When people start feeling down or bad, they want to isolate, she said.
“That is the worst thing to do. Make sure to reach out to somebody,” Blankenship said.
Dayton Children’s emergency department and behavioral health crisis center are available for youth and families who need immediate attention, such as for a mental health assessment or hospitalization.
There are also resources available to connect youth and families to mental health services in the community.
Crisis care: What to expect
When families come to either Dayton Children’s emergency department or crisis center, patients will go through a suicide screening questionnaire first and then another assessment, Blankenship said.
“If they’re in the crisis center, then one of our crisis clinicians will come in and do an assessment,” Blankeship said. “They’ll meet with the child and the parent together, and then the parent will be interviewed alone, and the child will be interviewed alone as well.”
The clinicians will then go over the assessment and their recommendations.
• MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS: More from this project
“If the child is able to go home, then the clinician will complete a safety plan with the child and the parent,” Blankenship said.
Someone from Dayton Children’s behavioral health team will follow up with the family within 24-48 hours to make sure they have all of the follow-up care that they need and that the family and youth are connected if they need outpatient resources or additional outpatient appointments, she said.
“If the child is having thoughts of wanting to kill themselves and the family does not feel that they are safe to come home, then the child would be admitted to our behavioral health unit,” Blankenship said. “And the nurse and the crisis clinician would discuss with the parent exactly what that looks like.”
They would be able to show the family and the child a video of the inpatient unit so they would know what to expect when the child was taken upstairs to the behavioral health unit, she said.
Finding help
Dayton Children’s on our sleeves program includes additional free resources for families, educators, coaches and other community members who interact with youth. For more information, visit childrensdayton.org/onoursleeves.
Dayton Children’s Mental Health Resource Connection program is a service that connects patients and families to available mental health services in the community. The service is administered by social workers experienced in evaluating pediatric mental health needs and the services required to meet those needs.
The Mental Health Resource Connection is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 937-641-4780 or visit childrensdayton.org to fill out an online contact form or search Dayton’s Children’s mental health resources directory.
The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration also offers an online tool for helping to find access to treatment at FindTreatment.gov.
Additional Montgomery County resources can be found through mc.localhelpnow.org, which is a directory provided by the Montgomery County Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services board.
MENTAL HEALTH MATTERS
A project from the Dayton Daily News
Mental health issues affect all segments of our community, in slightly different ways. Our in-depth reporting focus this year is centered on children through our Mental Health Matters: Kids in Crisis series. With this project, we'll address the larger community in crisis by investigating how mental health issues impact higher education, the workforce and seniors.
- » Kids in Crisis: More of Ohio’s youth are struggling with mental health problems
- » ‘Everything got very muted’; Battling the stigma attached to mental health
- » Letter from the editor: Mental health is a community challenge we must solve together
- » Sign up for our Mental Health Matters newsletter
- » Full project coverage
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