Helping Kids in Crisis: Managing Psychiatric Emergencies in Children and Adolescents

Helping Kids in Crisis: Managing Psychiatric Emergencies in Children and
Adolescents provides expert guidance to practitioners responding to high-stakes
situations, such as children considering or attempting suicide, cutting or
injuring themselves purposely, and becoming aggressive or violently destructive.
Children experiencing behavioral crises frequently reach critical states in
venues that were not designed to respond to or support them-in school, for
example, or at home among their highly stressed and confused families.
Professionals who provide services to these children must be able to quickly
determine threats to safety and initiate interventions to deescalate behaviors,
often with limited resources. The editors and authors have extensive experience
at one of the busiest and best regional referral centers for children with
psychiatric emergencies, and have deftly translated their expertise into this
symptom-based guide to help non-psychiatric clinicians more effectively and
compassionately care for this challenging population.

The book is designed
for ease of use and its structure and features are helpful and supportive: The
book is written for practitioners in hospital or community-based settings,
including physicians in training, pediatricians who work in office-based or
emergency settings, psychologists, social workers, school psychologists,
guidance counselors, and school nurses-professionals for whom child psychiatric
resources are few. Clear risk and diagnostic assessment tools allow clinicians
working in settings without access to child mental health professionals to think
like trained emergency room child psychiatrists-from evaluation to treatment.
The content is symptom-focused, enabling readers to swiftly identify the
appropriate chapter, with decision trees and easy-to-read tables to use for
quick de-escalation and risk assessment. A guide to navigating the educational
system, child welfare system, and other systems of care helps clinicians to
identify and overcome systems-level barriers to obtain necessary treatment for
their patients. Finally, the book provides an extensive review of successful
models of emergency psychiatric care from across the country to assist
clinicians and hospital administrators in program design. An abundance of case
examples of common emergency symptoms or behaviors provides professionals with
critical, concrete tools for diagnostic evaluation, risk assessment, decision
making, de-escalation, and safety planning. Helping Kids in Crisis: Managing
Psychiatric Emergencies in Children and Adolescents is a vital resource for
clinicians facing high-risk challenges on the front lines to help them intervene
effectively, relieve suffering, and keep their young patients safe.