Riverside Services for Children in Crisis

If you are worried about the way a child is acting or feeling, I wanted to remind you of two of Riverside’s key services (offered in the South Worcester County and Metro Boston areas).  Families can access crisis evaluation services outside of a hospital emergency room through both our emergency psychiatric services and home-based intensive services.  Here’s a brief description of what we provide:

Riverside’s Emergency Services/Mobile Crisis Intervention team can respond 24 hours/day 7 days a week and meet a child at home, at school, in an office or in other community settings! The specially trained team of Emergency Services clinicians will evaluate a child, provide initial crisis intervention services to help de-escalate the situation and avoid a trip to an emergency department, and collaborate with the family to identify sensible next steps and make linkages to other services as needed, including in-home therapy and outpatient care.

Riverside’s In-home Therapy services are supports provided by clinicians aimed at helping children in crisis and their families learn ways to better manage challenging daily living issues and social interaction, and to improve communication. Riverside’s clinicians, who have extensive experience in crisis intervention, clinical assessment and treatment work closely with each family on a one-to-one basis, often in the home. Together they develop strategies that are built on the child’s and the family’s strengths that promote healthy functioning at home, in the community and at school.

We’ve greatly expanded our children’s services over the past year or so. This is just a sampling of children’s services and you can always learn more by clicking “Children’s Services” on the top navigation bar of our website.

~Laurie Hutcheson, Director of Strategic Planning