Teens can often notice mental health warning signs in their peers before adults. Teach them about mental health crisis warning signs and encourage them to tell an adult if someone they know is in danger.
States are addressing youth in crisis by ensuring that crisis receiving and stabilization facilities align, and integrate, with other child-serving systems. Some are also incorporating family lived experiences into these settings.
Signs of a Mental Health Crisis
Young people who are struggling with mental health issues often do not have the tools to identify or communicate their needs, making it important for adults to watch for signs of trouble. These include a sudden change in mood or behavior, drug use and other addiction issues, depression or hopelessness, isolation from friends and family, social withdrawal, poor eating or sleeping habits and/or suicidal thoughts or actions.
Parents can recognize some of these warning signs by paying attention to their child’s emotional well-being, observing how they interact with other people and looking for any unexplained cuts or bruises. It can also be helpful to save crisis lines in your family’s phone as contacts and talk to your teen or child about how they can keep themselves safe. When someone is in a mental health crisis, they need to be taken to the emergency room right away. The sooner a mental health crisis is addressed, the more likely a person is to recover and prevent future episodes.
Suicide Prevention
Suicide is a complicated human behavior with multiple risk and protective factors. Prevention efforts must address many of these. Efforts should be comprehensive and integrated. Some potentially successful strategies are gatekeeper training, suicide screening, and teaching warning signs. Restricting access to lethal means is another strategy that reduces suicide rates.
Supporting a teenager who is struggling with suicidal thoughts or behaviors can be emotionally draining for parents. Encourage them to create a support network for themselves and get regular therapy or counseling. Helping a teenager to develop a safety plan is also important. This can include a list of people they can contact in a crisis, emergency numbers and coping skills.
School-based programs that provide emotional and social support can reduce youth suicide rates. They can include peer support programs that foster healthy relationships, and life-skills training like problem-solving and conflict resolution. Programs should also address the stigma around mental illness. They can do this by creating community awareness campaigns and encouraging healthcare providers to discuss the benefits of treatment with adolescents.
Calling the Crisis Line
If you’re concerned that your child is experiencing a mental health crisis, it’s important to call the appropriate number. Many local and regional agencies have trained specialists that can help.
Kids In Crisis offers a critical service, connecting callers with compassionate outreach workers like Gabby or Scott, who have undergone extensive training to understand the unique challenges children and teens face in their daily lives. These professionals are not just voices on the phone; they have honed their active listening, empathy and validation skills – all crucial tools to helping distressed youth.
YouthLine offers crisis counseling, support and referrals to local resources by phone, text or online chat. The counselors are available 24/7 and are free, confidential and anonymous.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline also provides free, confidential suicide prevention support and information in English or Spanish via phone, web or text. The Trevor Project offers peer-to-peer crisis counseling and suicide prevention for LGBT youth via phone, live online chat or text.
Getting Help
A teenager’s mental health crisis can be a sign of a more serious issue. A psychologist can help them identify and treat the underlying cause of their distress.
Psychologists are also working to reduce the stressors that can lead to a mental health crisis in teens. This includes improving access to preventive services, including depression screenings and anxiety checks.
For example, they are implementing mobile crisis units that provide a rapid assessment and next steps in the community. This is a model that many states are incorporating into their service systems.
Additionally, they are collaborating with others to improve family and youth engagement, ensuring that a family’s needs are met throughout the crisis process. Some states include family members with lived experience on their advisory boards. This is a best practice that other organizations should consider. However, my recent scan found that few organizations that focus on youth in crisis do so while highlighting the role of youth voice.