It’s tough for parents to find mental health care for their kids.
“Access to services has gone down while demand has increased,” said Dr. Laine Taylor, “thereby making it very difficult to be able to get the level of care you're looking for.”
Taylor is The Medical Director for the social service agency known as The Village for Families and Children.
In August of 2023, The Village was one of four organizations statewide to open a children’s urgent crisis center to help meet the growing need. The Village’s UCC is in Hartford, while the other three are in New Haven at Yale New Haven Hospital, New London at The Child and Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut and Waterbury at Wellmore Behavioral Health. Taylor says in their first year, the facilities have helped 1,200 children through mental health crises.
She said parents who visit a children’s urgent crisis center like hers can be seen relatively quickly.
“You can get a interdisciplinary assessment by a psychiatric provider, a clinician and a nurse to be able to do a holistic, well rounded assessment within a span of four hours in and out,” Taylor said. “We turn away zero people. It doesn't matter whether you have ability to pay or insurance, because it is a state-funded program.”
Taylor says the service should remain completely free for at least another year.
“Fortunately, we've been funded for another year by the state via grant funding to sustain us,” Taylor said. “We're really looking to continue to have some state support with a blended model of also being able to do private and Medicaid billing.”
Taylor said besides the state’s urgent crisis centers, Connecticut families can take advantage of other referral resources too.
“You literally just have to dial 2-1-1 on your phone in order to be able to talk to someone in order to get support and services for your youth,” Taylor said. “[or] you can go through your pediatrician, and they're able to access something called access mental health within the state, where they can talk to a clinician and a physician in order to figure out how to get you the right services for your child.”
The Village for Children and Families is open Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. It’s located at 1680 Albany Ave. in Hartford.
To reach their urgent crisis center directly, call 860-297-0520 or for a more general overview, call 860-236-4511.
“They can talk to you about the other services that we provide, from outpatient to residential as well,” Taylor said.
