Child & Adolescent ServicesOur services are designed to meet the needs of persons who are eligible for admission to our Center. Unless otherwise indicated, all services are available for eligible children, adolescents and adults. Please use this as a summary guide as not all specialty services are included here.
Screening & Crisis Response – Available to any person in crisis residing within Gulf Bend Center’s seven county service area 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Crisis Hotline: (877) 723-3422
Assessment – Available for individuals who are not currently admitted and for who are believed to meet admission criteria. The assessment determines priority population status, diagnosis and level of need.
Consumer Benefits – Available to all individuals receiving services and to those who are identified as meeting admission eligibility. The goal is to assist individuals in procuring a payer/benefit for services received.
Information & Referral – We provide an explanation of and assistance with accessing community, state, federal and private services needed or desired by individuals or families to help with their problems.
Case Management – provided to all persons receiving ongoing services for mental health issues. There are six different packages children and adolescents can be placed in based on their level of care.
Medical Services – A team of professionals including psychiatrists and nurses deliver services to our mental health and intellectual and developmental disability populations.
Skills Training - Staff will provide services to assist you in building skills to address your needs. These skills may include problem identification and solving related to your condition and acquiring the skills necessary to meet your goals.
Counseling – The service focuses on the reduction or elimination of an individual’s symptoms of severe and persistent mental illness and increasing the individual’s ability to perform activities of daily living.
WHO IS ELIGIBILE FOR SERVICES?
Children & youth ages of 3 – 17 whom:
- Have a diagnosis of mental illness (other than a diagnosis of substance abuse, autism, intellectual disability [IDD] or pervasive developmental disorder; and
- Exhibit serious, emotional, behavioral or mental disorders; and have a serious functional impairment; are at risk of disruption of a preferred living or child care environment due to psychiatric symptoms.
- or are enrolled in a school system’s Special Education Program because of serious emotional disturbance.
Gulf Bend Center accepts CHIPS, Medicaid, Medicare, Self-Pay and most private insurance plans. Individuals with no insurance benefits are still eligible to apply for services.
Note: Diagnosis and assessment of current functioning will determine the services a client is eligible to receive.
Children’s Level of Care:
Level of Care: Young Child (YC) Services
This level of care is not based on intensity of need. Instead, it has services that are developmentally appropriate for children ages 3-5. For this age group, the evidence based practices are designed to improve the parent-child relationship as the strength of that relationship is critical to your child’s present and future success. Services might include skills training designed to help you as a parent to address your child’s mental health needs. They might also include counseling with both you and your child to improve your connection and relationship and help you address your child’s emotional, behavioral and social needs. Wraparound may also be appropriate for your family, where a team approach will be used to identify and build natural supports to meet the needs of your family. The skills you and your child develop in this level of care will directly impact the lifelong resilience of you, your child, and your family.
Level of Care 1: Medication Management
This is the lowest level of care and therefore has a very limited array of services. It is designed for children/youth who have already developed a high degree of resilience and who are stable in their recovery. This means that they may have needed a more intense level of care in the past, but through the skills they learned, services completed and strengths they have developed they are able to navigate their world with fewer formal supports. Formal supports like counseling and skills training are not available in this level of care. If your child is recommended for this level of care, he/she has been prescribed psychiatric medication and will continue to take the medication to manage symptoms of their emotional disturbance or mental illness. At this time, it may be possible that your child is ready to be discharged from services if medication is either no longer needed or a prescribing physician can be found in your community. Way to go, this is what you and your child have been working towards!
Level of Care 2: Targeted Services
This level of care is designed to provide services that target specific types of needs or symptoms. In this level of care children/youth have a set of symptoms that either have a negative impact on their emotional health or their behavioral health. Counseling will likely be offered as a treatment option first for those children/youth with emotional needs. For those children/youth with behavioral needs, skills training will likely the service offered. However, counseling and skills training are not “one size fits all.” During the review of your child’s recovery plan it may be determined that a different type of service should be tried. Once your child builds the necessary resilience and increases his/her natural strengths, he/she will be able to discontinue these formal supports and move to a lower level of care. All of the hard work you all have been doing is really starting to pay off!
Level of Care 3: Complex Services
This level of care is designed to provide a complex array of services that target complex needs or symptoms. In this level of care children/youth have symptoms that have a negative impact on both their emotional health and their behavioral health. Children/youth in this level of care are provided counseling to help with their emotional needs and skills training to address their behavioral needs. This level of care would also be ideal if your child was participating in counseling and you were able to participate in skills training for parents –designed to help you as a parent to address your child’s mental health needs. The formal supports provided will help your child to better manage the complex symptoms affecting his/her mental health. Over time he/she will need less of these services or may be able to discontinue them. This will indicate that he/she requires a less intense level of care because he/she has built up their strengths and resilience. There is hope that things can keep getting better!
Level of Care 4: Intensive Family Services
This is the highest level of care available in outpatient services for children/youth. This level of care is designed for children/ youth whose mental health needs have led to negative involvement in other child serving systems such as juvenile justice, alternative education, or child welfare. At this level of care there is an emphasis on the approach taken to service coordination. This approach uses the Wraparound Planning Process. The Wraparound process is designed to help children and youth who are at risk for being removed from their preferred community. A Wraparound facilitator will lead this process using a team approach in which you and your child play an equal role as members of the team. Formal supports like counseling and skills training are also available to address emotional and/or behavioral needs. All of your formal supports-and more importantly natural supports and strengths-will be assembled to work together on one team. The solutions that come from the team will have a lasting impact on your family’s ability to recover from the difficulties your child is facing. And the natural supports & strengths make it possible to maintain that resilience & recovery for a lifetime.
Please note that while there are established criteria for admission to services, each individual’s presenting problems, special circumstances and intensity of need is always given the highest consideration.
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