New Rapid Response Services for Young People in Mental Health Crisis

A new initiative at Nationwide Children’s Hospital is providing mobile mental and behavioral health services to young people in crisis – sending specialists to respond on location in less than 60 minutes for emergent requests and within 24 hours for non-emergent requests.

Nationwide Children’s Mobile Response and Stabilization Services provide immediate behavioral health services for people younger than 21 in Franklin County who are experiencing significant behavioral or emotional distress. For many families, it's an alternative to seeking other means of help.

“Instead of families calling the police or having to come into an emergency department or psychiatric crisis department and potentially wait a long time to be seen, we can actually go where the crisis is,” said Ericka Bruns, director of Behavioral Health Acute Services at Nationwide Children’s.

These interventions are intended to keep the young person in their current living arrangement by helping them and their families build skills to reduce the frequency and intensity of future crises.

Nationwide Children’s launched the initiative in collaboration with OhioRISE (Resilience through Integrated Systems and Excellence), Ohio Medicaid’s specialized managed care program for youth with complex behavioral health and multisystem needs.

The service responds to any issue the family considers a behavioral health crisis, such as school truancy, escalating emotional or behavioral issues, running away from home or suicidal ideation. Trained staff are sent to wherever the crisis is happening, whether at home, school or any other safe location in the community.

“This is critical because the team can intervene in the moment of crisis with key players from that child’s family or social system present,” said Meredith Adams, clinical manager of Crisis Intervention Services at Nationwide Children’s.

The team is staffed by licensed clinicians, qualified behavioral health specialists and parent-peer recovery specialists trained to work specifically with the family. Their goal is to arrive within an hour of a request for help.

“We come in as an unbiased support to the family and provide each individual with what they need,” said Adams.

After the situation is de-escalated, the team works with the child and their family to develop a crisis plan for the future. The team can work with the family for up to six weeks to continue with stabilization, intervention, maintenance planning and getting the family connected with ongoing resources.

“That's what makes us successful,” said Adams.

Nationwide Children became a Mobile Response and Stabilization Services provider due to the volume of children and families needing crisis response services in the community.

The service collaborates with the hospital’s Franklin County Youth Psychiatric Crisis Line, which receives thousands of calls each year.

“Now when families call in, we can offer to come out to them,” said Adams.

The program also partners with the Columbus Police Department, which asks for mobile response teams to respond to certain crisis situations, both with and without an officer.

The hospital currently operates the service Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. According to Adams, the goal is to eventually offer this service 24/7.

“Families in our community need this, and many of them don't need to come to a facility to receive care,” said Bruns.

Now, rather than having to go to a facility, families can ask for help to come to them.