Description
Book Synopsis 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.
Trade ReviewThis book is a must-have for any health care provider who encounters children on a regular basis and who feels the need to be prepared for crises. It is particularly helpful for those in outpatient practice, pediatricians, and family practice providers, as well as school mental health providers.
Educators are apt to find the algorithms provided for each presenting problem particularly helpful; however, the language of the differential and some of the medical diction may be mismatched for their background. This book is likely less helpful for parents, as it is aimed at those who have some resources or base knowledge at hand. However, for an informed family—those with lived experience of crises and some background vocabulary of child mental health—I would not hesitate to recommend it. The algorithms, risk factor tables, and de-escalation techniques are thoughtful and clear. This book does not attempt to support everyone encountering kids in crisis—particularly missing an opportunity to speak more directly to educators or parents. That may have to wait for a future edition. However, for those of us in the pediatric mental health field needing a well-organized, pragmatic approach to how and when children need interventions, this is the book to own.
-- Kelly Ochoa, M.D., Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island * Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Vol. 58, Number 1 *
Table of ContentsContributors
Introduction
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1. Kids in Crisis
Chapter 2. Aggression
Chapter 3. Suicide and Self-Injurious Behaviors
Chapter 4. Tantrums and Behavioral Outbursts
Chapter 5. The "Odd" Child
Chapter 6. Child Abuse and Trauma
Chapter 7. Risky Behaviors
Chapter 8. Clinical and Forensic Psychological Issues With At-Risk Youths and Juvenile Delinquents
Chapter 9. Substance Use: HELPING TEENAGERS AND FAMILIES WORK THROUGH A SUBSTANCE USE CRISIS
Chapter 10. Finding Help: HELPING FAMILIES FIND EFFECTIVE TREATMENT FOR CHILDREN WITH PSYCHIATRIC ILLNESS
Chapter 11. Models of Emergency Psychiatric Care for Children and Adolescents: MOVING FROM TRIAGE TO MEANINGFUL ENGAGEMENT IN MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT
Index
