Risk Assessment and Crisis Intervention for Youth in a Time of Telehealth

Course overview

This course is based upon material published in The Official Journal of the California Association of School Psychologists: Contemporary School Psychology and is available as an open-access article. For the last decade, there has been growing concern regarding the rising rates of youth engagement in self-injury and suicide. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has elevated these concerns due to increased risk factors pertaining to social, family, economic, and health stressors, as well as changes to typical routines and support systems. Unfortunately, there are many barriers to at-risk youth accessing evidence-based mental health services, including cost, lack of trained providers, transportation issues, and physical distancing due to the pandemic. Providing school-based prevention and intervention programs that promote social, emotional, and behavioral well-being helps to address many of these barriers. This article highlights important considerations to providing these services in a school-based telehealth modality. Symptom clusters that put youth at risk of harm to themselves are described. Best practice therapeutic modalities that can be disseminated in a school-based telehealth modality, such as cognitive behavior therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, and mindfulness-based approaches, are reviewed. Although there is growing empirical literature for these school-based prevention and intervention approaches, additional research is needed to determine how to best support at-risk youth remotely This course on telehealth risk assessment is designed for social workers, professional counselors, psychologists, nurses, and substance abuse counselors, who do clinical work. In addition, this course is appropriate for intermediate and advanced level practitioners who wish to discover more about telehealth risk assessment. The course material includes a literature review of crisis interventions. It may also be useful for licensed clinicians who require continuing clinical education courses for license renewal. The course is based on a journal article that includes research. It contains statistical analysis and data that some clinicians enjoy reading and others do not. A significant benefit of reading research-based articles for continuing education is they provide practitioners with the latest findings in their field. Authors: Holland, Hawks, Morelli, Khan Learning Objectives: This course will provide the practitioner with detailed information regarding telehealth risk assessment. Specifically, a professional will: Describe the term telehealth and its components Identify telehealth evidence-based interventions for at-risk youth Summarize how telehealth can be used in risk assessment