Bellevue Collaborates to Improve Mental Health Services in the Juvenile Justice System
Partners with ACS to provide psychiatric care to youths in detention.
Oct 31, 2014
The Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) announce the implementation of an intra-city agreement that will allow Bellevue Hospital Center to provide psychiatric and psychological care to youth in secure and non-secure detention.
This important partnership is one in a series of steps ACS is taking to enhance mental health services throughout our juvenile justice continuum. We are improving assessment practices, better identifying the needs of the young people involved in our system, creating more informed treatment and placement options for young people with complex emotional and behavioral issues, and working to maintain consistent quality services.
“We would like to thank the Health and Hospitals Corporation for working with us to execute this agreement and allowing us to build our relationship with Bellevue Hospital and Dr. Jennifer Havens, Director and Chief of Service of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Bellevue,” said ACS Commissioner Gladys Carrion. “This collaboration will allow youth in detention to benefit from Bellevue Hospital’s groundbreaking work in trauma evaluation and interventions, and services in treatment for serious issues that often stem from abuse and neglect.”
“HHC is the leading provider of behavioral health services in the City, and Bellevue is one of the hospitals leading that effort,” said HHC President Dr. Ram Raju. “Young people are a very important population to reach as intervention at a younger age results in better outcomes for patients. We’re pleased to provide these services in conjunction with ACS.”
“In partnership with ACS, the Bellevue team has made great progress in moving the facilities towards trauma-informed care,” Dr. Havens said. “We are excited to have the opportunity to deepen the work and provide these youth and families with the level of mental health care they need and deserve.”
Dr. Havens leads a team of child and adolescent psychiatrists and psychologists who are based at Crossroads and Horizon Juvenile Detention Centers, providing mental health evaluation and treatment to youth in secure and non-secure detention. In addition to direct clinical services, the Bellevue team is focused on enhancing the quality of the milieu in the centers through the implementation of effective group programming, and supporting the front-line detention staff in their management of youth. The Bellevue team works in close collaboration with detention staff (including contracted mental health, ACS case managers and juvenile counselors and facility leadership) to maximize the effectiveness of mental health interventions.
This partnership will allow both of the ACS-run juvenile detention facilities to benefit from the expertise of Bellevue’s successful programs in helping children who have been exposed to trauma and abuse, suffer from depression, substance abuse and/or PTSD. The improved mental health evaluation process, trauma-informed screening, and treatment options will help guide each youth’s treatment planning, inform the placement matching process, and promote continuity of care. Furthermore, this work will provide a framework to train and educate staff within juvenile detention facilities to ensure more successful outcomes.
The execution of the Intra-City agreement will enable ACS and Bellevue to build on the significant work that Bellevue has already done over the past two years, made possible from a four-year grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to infuse trauma-informed care in our juvenile justice secure detention settings.
Contact: Chris McKniff (ACS), (212) 341-0886
Ian Michaels (HHC), (212) 788-3339, ian.michaels@nychhc.org
About NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue
Bellevue is a member of the NYC Health + Hospitals health care system and is America’s oldest hospital, established in 1736. Affiliated with the NYU School of Medicine, Bellevue is a major referral center for highly complex cases. The 844-bed hospital has 6,000 employees including highly skilled, interdisciplinary clinical staff. It sees more than 110,000 emergency room visits and 500,000 outpatient visits annually. Clinical centers of excellence include: Emergency Medicine and Trauma Care; Cardiovascular Services; Designated Regional Perinatal Center and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (ICU); Comprehensive Children’s Psychiatric Emergency Program; and Cancer Services. For more information, visit nychealthandhospitals.org/bellevueor find us on twitter.com/BellevueHosp.
About NYC Health + Hospitals
The NYC Health + Hospitals health care system is a $6.7 billion integrated healthcare delivery system, the largest municipal healthcare organization in the country, and one of the New York area’s largest providers of government-sponsored health insurance, MetroPlusHealth Health Plan, the plan of choice for nearly half a million New Yorkers. The NYC Health + Hospitals health care system serves 1.4 million New Yorkers every year and more than 475,000 are uninsured. The system provides medical, mental health and substance abuse services through its 11 acute care hospitals, five skilled nursing facilities, six large diagnostic and treatment centers and more than 70 community based clinics. NYC Health + Hospitals/Home Care also provides in-home services for New Yorkers. The NYC Health + Hospitals system was the 2008 recipient of the National Quality Forum and The Joint Commission’s John M. Eisenberg Award for Innovation in Patient Safety and Quality. For more information, visit www.nychealthandhospitals.org or find us on https://www.facebook.com/NYCHealthSystem or twitter.com/NYCHealthSystem.