St. Cloud-Area Mental Health Program Expands to Include Youth Psychiatric Services

(KNSI) – A local mental health care program is now offering psychiatric services for youth.

Urgent Care for Mental Health CEO Marc Van Herr says the goal of providing urgent mental health care is to reduce the long wait times for seeing a counselor or psychiatrist, and he says this is especially true when it comes to children’s mental health needs.

“The demand for psychiatric services for children far outstrips what’s available in the marketplace,” Van Herr said. “It’s a shame when parents and children have to wait two, three, four months for help, to get an appointment that they need right away.”

In addition to the psychiatric services geared toward people age 25 and younger, Urgent Care for Mental Health also provides teletherapy and in-person counseling services in St. Cloud and Minneapolis. Van Herr says the goals of urgent mental health care are the same as urgent care for physical health: ensure safety, make the patient comfortable and make a plan for moving forward.

“If you’re having a heart attack, you go to the emergency room,” Van Herr said. “If you’re thinking of harming yourself, you go to the hospital, you call a crisis team. But if you’ve got a fever of 101 and chills, you go to urgent care. That’s what this is for: folks who, you know, their mental health is getting the best of them, they’re not going to harm themselves or anybody else, but they also should probably see somebody sooner rather than later.”

Getting patients connected to a mental health provider within days instead of weeks makes up one part of the equation. Van Herr said when a patient is initially brought in, providers take a different approach to the situation compared to conventional counseling.

“You have somebody who is in a heightened state of crisis, so they need to find some tools that they can use to kind of put themselves back on track and keep them in between the guard rails with that,” Van Herr said.

In addition to tackling the time barrier that impedes access to mental health care, Van Herr says stigma and finances also play a role. For the latter, Urgent Care for Mental Health’s services are covered by several insurance providers, and it uses a sliding pay scale to set the cost of services.

“The other big issue, frankly, is the stigma that’s attached to mental health,” Van Herr said. “Over the last several years since we’ve been working in our community and educating folks about mental health, that stigma has gotten better. We still have a long way to go; it’s a big ship to turn, but it’s beginning to turn.”

Urgent Care for Mental Health has a 24-hour service line (320-216-3300) for people seeking mental health services and those concerned about another person’s mental health.

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