Community Mental Health Crisis Services for Children and Adolescents

Abstract

A review of national, and some international, literature was conducted to determine the state-of-the-art knowledge about best practices in crisis services for children and adolescents. Specific attention was given to community-based approaches, empirical studies of particular models or approaches, and otherwise innovative conceptual or descriptive publications. Despite a growing body of research about children in crisis and the effects of trauma, research generally does not offer guidelines as to how to engage children in crisis, nor do existing guidelines offer much in terms of evaluations of treatment responses. Only a few experimental studies have been conducted on specific community based crisis intervention models for children and youth, and even fewer provide longer term follow-up data. Nonetheless, experimental and non-experimental research provide some evidence that crisis intervention programs can successfully divert hospitalization for many children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral disabilities in favor of less restrictive community-based alternatives.