Family Help Guide Menu

Crisis Help

Family Help Guide Menu

Crisis Help

How to get help in an emergency

Children and youths with mental health conditions can become very angry, sad, or even suicidal. It is important to plan for an emergency before a crisis. Stay calm if your child is having an emotional crisis. It’s scary for a child to feel out of control, and even scarier if adults also are upset. Speak softly and try to help your child feel safe.

Seek help if you are concerned that there is immediate risk of harm to your child or others, including yourself. Examples of mental health crises include suicidal thoughts or actions, psychotic episodes, or out of control, irrational, potentially dangerous behaviors.

If you call a community crisis line, you will be connected with a social service agency that will send a crisis worker to your home or ask you to bring your child to the agency office. If no crisis worker is available, the agency may contact local police to de-escalate a crisis. The goal of crisis intervention is to stabilize the immediate situation and connect the individual with care, which could include therapy, medication and/or hospitalization.

Make sure that emergency phone numbers are easily accessible in your home. Keep a file of medical records, including contact information for the doctor and/or therapist treating your child, and a list of current and past medications. Keep this file where you can locate it quickly, in case you need to provide this information to emergency responders or health care professionals.

In an emergency you can get help through:

In an emergency you can get help through:

Hospitalization and Planning Ahead

“We were unable to reach our daughter’s psychiatrist during a manic crisis when our daughter was 15. We feared that someone would get hurt, and so we took our very frightened and angry child to an emergency room.

Several months later, she was very depressed and asked to be hospitalized. In-patient treatment was no longer a frightening unknown. It was a safe haven.”

— Lisa

Sometimes, when a child is perilously unstable or every other intervention has failed, hospital treatment is needed. Hospitalization can be the best way to provide safety and stabilize a suffering child, to conduct medical tests, or to change medications under expert supervision. A good pediatric psychiatric unit is a lot like a good pediatric medical unit—therapeutic and designed to be safe and comforting for kids.

Parents need the guidance of a trusted clinician in hospitalization decisions, but parents also should trust their own judgment. No one would fault a parent for rushing a child with acute stomach pain to an emergency room. Severe depression, mania, or psychosis can be life-threatening, just like appendicitis.

Plan for hospitalization before a crisis.

It’s hard to make decisions or explore options in a moment of extreme stress.

Before an emergency, parents can:

  • Talk to the child’s psychiatrist or physician about what to do in a crisis
  • Get an emergency phone number to reach the psychiatrist or physician
  • Get a the phone number for local crisis intervention services
  • Create a file with treatment and medication history and emergency phone numbers. Keep it where it can be accessed quickly
  • Ask if the child’s doctor has hospital admitting privileges, so that he or she can call ahead to admit the child and avoid an emergency room wait
  • Ask the child’s doctor for hospital recommendations
  • Find out which hospitals are included in your health care network
  • Arrange for a friend or relative to shelter siblings in an emergency

Before an emergency, parents can:

  • Talk to the child’s psychiatrist or physician about what to do in a crisis
  • Get an emergency phone number to reach the psychiatrist or physician
  • Get a the phone number for local crisis intervention services
  • Create a file with treatment and medication history and emergency phone numbers. Keep it where it can be accessed quickly
  • Ask if the child’s doctor has hospital admitting privileges, so that he or she can call ahead to admit the child and avoid an emergency room wait
  • Ask the child’s doctor for hospital recommendations
  • Find out which hospitals are included in your health care network
  • Arrange for a friend or relative to shelter siblings in an emergency

Juvenile Justice

“I went to the police social worker, asking for help. I said, ‘I can’t control my daughter.’ I was not telling police to arrest my child. The social worker got services started, and my daughter was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Finally, she’s getting help.”

— Jamie

Youths with mental health issues may be impulsive or prone to aggressive acts. They may skip school, use street drugs or alcohol, or defy parents and other authorities. Often, they have poor judgment. These factors increase the odds of police involvement. Studies show that 70 percent of youths with police or juvenile justice involvement have a diagnosable mental illness.

Many police departments, township youth services offices, community mental health centers, and schools employ social workers or youth interventionists to work with at-risk youths. These youths may be referred to counseling or substance abuse treatment. Seek help for your child before police contact. The aim of these programs is to promote healthy youth and families and to keep youths out of juvenile justice.

Oak Park and River Forest Township Youth Services offers comprehensive support for youths and their families in the community at 708-445-2727. Masters-level youth interventionists provide assessment, counseling, and care coordination. They link youths to services such as substance abuse counseling, job training, and conflict resolution.

Help your child avoid the justice system if at all possible. Parents sometimes view the juvenile justice system as a way to get help for an out-of-control youth. This is a misperception. There are too few mental health services in the juvenile justice system to meet the need, and youths may be traumatized by the experience of arrest, detention, and/or incarceration. Once in juvenile justice, youths also are far more likely to have future criminal involvement.

If your child is questioned by police or arrested:

  • Your child needs a lawyer. If you can’t afford a lawyer, you can get one for free
  • Tell your child not to say ANYTHING to police until a parent AND his or her defense lawyer are present
  • Tell police you want to know where your child is being held. Go there immediately. Tell police you want to be with your child right away.
  • Alert police and your child’s lawyer if your child has a mental health illness, or if he or she should be evaluated for mental health needs

If your child is questioned by police or arrested:

  • Your child needs a lawyer. If you can’t afford a lawyer, you can get one for free
  • Tell your child not to say ANYTHING to police until a parent AND his or her defense lawyer are present
  • Tell police you want to know where your child is being held. Go there immediately. Tell police you want to be with your child right away.
  • Alert police and your child’s lawyer if your child has a mental health illness, or if he or she should be evaluated for mental health needs

More information about the juvenile justice system and your child’s rights and options are available in two publications by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and   the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law

The Juvenile Justice System: A Guide for Families In Illinois 

Know Your Rights: A Zine-style books for youth