“You have kids that really need to get into a provider and there’s just no one to turn to. It’s not that providers don’t want to see them; they just don’t have the capacity.”
To help meet that need, DA Blodgett-St. John’s is adding openings for 150 more youth in their services.
Holly Anderton is the Director of Program Impact and Residential Services.
She says when it comes to child and adolescent psychiatric providers, industry experts recommend a community should have about 47 per 100-thousand children.
“In Kent County, in particular has 19 for every 100-thousand kids. We’re pretty low.”
The number of services available has simply not kept up with the overall increase in youth mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, and ADHD.
”Things are becoming much more complex and that is not something primary care doctors feel necessarily comfortable prescribing medications for, or even if they feel they should prescribe medication.”
Many families depend on those primary care doctors to fill that mental health need, but Anderton says the complex issues require specialists.
“Just like if you broke your leg, you wouldn’t go to your primary care doctor and hope you’d get the best reset of your leg. You’d want to go see an orthopedic surgeon. I really feel that way about psychiatry.”
DABSJ’s services have previously been available only to youth in its programs but now will extend psychiatric care to the wider community at its new facility on Dean Lake Avenue in Grand Rapids through in-person or telehealth appointments.
