Crisis Intervention: This service offers 24 hour response to emergency situations either by phone or depending on the level of intensity, in person
Mental Health Assessment: This service involves a Clinical evaluation provided by a licensed mental health professional in which the necessary information is gathered to define youth or family’s concerns and help set goals for treatment. Functioning level, and strengths
Individual and Family Counseling: This service focuses on interactive therapeutic interventions which focus on the treatment needs of the individual and/or family seeking mental health services
Group Counseling: Group counseling is an interactive therapeutic intervention which focus on the treatment needs of the individual seeking mental health services in a group setting
Pharmacological Management Services: This service is provided by a physician trained in psychiatry to use medications and other intervention used to reduce, stabilize or eliminate psychiatric symptoms.
Community Psychiatric Support (Individual and Group): This service is actually an array of services and activities that provide treatment, support and rehabilitation. The emphasis of this service is on nine specific treatment interventions: Assessment of needs, Skill development, linking, symptom monitoring, assistance in crisis management, advocacy, family education, elimination of barriers preventing independent functioning and social integration.
Keeping Families Strong: Program funded by the United Way of Ashland County and Mohican Area Community Fund that allows Appleseed to provide services to needy families
School/Community Liaisons: Collaborative project among the MHRB, Appleseed, and the Schools. Liaisons are a tremendous benefit to the communities we serve. Liaisons are well accepted in the schools and are providing an “identified” needed service. This service is funded by Ashland County Mental Health Levy funds.
How Youth Counseling Works
Breaking rules at home, feeling depressed, acting out at school—these are all signs that children or adolescents may need mental health services. Behavior problems in youth causes deep parental frustration, poor performance in school, and a chaotic home.
In America, four million youth suffer from a mental disorder that significantly impairs functioning at school, at home and with peers. But research shows that therapy works, especially when the intervention program focuses on multiple aspects of the youth’s life, from school to home to peers.
Appleseed Community Mental Health Center offers comprehensive youth mental health services for young people and their families. These are some of the steps involved in the process:
Step 1: The assessment
We begin the process of recovery with a mental health assessment. A certified counselor will talk to your child, gathering key information about the area of concern or behavior problems, and use insights from the child’s pediatrician, if applicable, to map out a treatment plan, including goals for medications and counseling interventions. For instance, our caring professionals can help facilitate treatment options for an ADHD diagnosis that includes non-pharmaceutical interventions, as well as medication for coping.
Step 2: Counseling
The assessment plan will map out a course of action for counseling sessions. The Appleseed Community Mental Health Center offers individual counseling, group counseling sessions, as well as family sessions. The recovery process may include one or more types of counseling.
We also offer youth access to 24-hour emergency response counselor for crisis situations. Our hotline is always open for calls, and our caring professionals are also available for face-to-face interventions, too.
Step 3: Medication
If your child’s treatment plan includes medications, a psychiatrist will develop an action plan for treating the mental health condition with medication, and once the condition is stabilized, create a plan for reducing or eliminating medications if behavioral therapies suffice.
Step 4: Additional services
Youths who require comprehensive mental health assistance, benefit from Appleseed’s Community Psychiatric Support in an individual or group setting. Offering treatment, support and rehabilitation, community psychiatric interventions include these components: assessing needs; developing skills; linking; monitoring symptoms; helping to manage a crisis; acting as an advocate; educating the family; eliminating barriers that stop the youth from functioning as an independent; and integrating social aspects.
Step 5: Community resources
Appleseed Community Mental Health Center is committed to assisting local families, and has partnered with the United Way of Ashland and the Mohican Area Community Fund to help needy families.
Step 6: Working with schools
Appleseed has joined with area schools and the Mental Health Recovery Board (MHRB) to facilitate communication between the youths we serve and public school staff via liaisons. A liaison in the school will help your child cope, increase attendance and respond to daily crises as they arise, acting as a bridge between the school and your family to identify community support services that could be helpful to your child.
Child Psychiatry Services
Child psychiatry services can make visions of a compliant child who’s successful in school and in relationships a reality. It can help turn around what’s a seemingly impossible situation to caregivers dealing with rebellion, out-of-control behavior and legal problems. Child psychiatry services can help your child get back on track, whether she’s dealing with ADHD, depression, anxiety or a host of other mental health problems. Without expert help, however, these problems could continue to burden your child as he enters adulthood.
Psychiatric services for children
Appleseed Community Mental Health Center is Ashland, Ohio’s first resource for expert child psychiatry services, and it’s one of the factors that make our center unique. Our child psychiatrists are highly trained professionals, having undergone rigorous educational and internship requirements. Child psychiatrists must undergo another layer of training and internship, devoting two years to residency serving adults, and three more years of residency serving children. The child psychiatrists at Appleseed Community Mental Health Center are licensed and certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
The Appleseed approach
The child psychiatrists at Appleseed Community Mental Health Center approach every child that they treat with a comprehensive approach that involves assessment, diagnosis and development of an individual program, along with other steps like family support and education, family therapy, legal advocacy, and more.
- Therapy – The hallmarks of our child psychiatry services’ approach to counseling include considering the child’s cognitive development and ability to express herself, focusing on developing social skills and problem-solving behaviors, and encouraging supportive caregiver relationships. Your child’s psychiatrist may also coordinate care with other medical professionals that are involved in your child’s care.
- Medication – Child psychiatrists may treat mental health problems with medication, having the qualifications to accurately diagnose conditions and prescribe the right meds. Ongoing treatment involves regulating the success of the medication and its side effects, and whenever possible, limiting the duration of treatment with medication.
The safe use of medications requires diagnosis and oversight by a child psychiatrist. Studies have shown the dangers of prescribing some medications used to treat mental health conditions for children. For example, in 2005 the FDA implemented a warning against using antidepressants in children, citing increased risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts for both children and adolescents. The NIMH, however, released a report stating that the benefits of treating certain conditions with medications outweighs any harm.
- Confidentiality – Your child’s visit with a child psychiatrist at Appleseed is completely confidential and judgment-free. All of the information you provide to the psychiatrist during the assessment and treatment phases is bound by the doctor-patient confidentiality agreement. We provide a safe environment for children and their caregivers to get help for mental health problems.
Appleseed Community Mental Health Center works with residents in the greater Ashland area. Contact our center for more information, or to inquire about a payment for child psychiatry services.