Special Populations in Psychiatric Emergency Services: Children and Adolescents

This chapter highlights the current state of child and adolescent emergency psychiatry, specifically the increase in pediatric psychiatry emergency room visits, and describes the roles the various emergency systems that assess and care for youth need to fill in this context. The authors also aim to enumerate the treatment modalities, types of staff, and interventions best suited to treat this population. The text also addresses the need for a greater investment in resources, both in infrastructure and specialized provider training, to allow for the implementation of innovative and efficient solutions to this growing gap in care.