Other Help Specialities
Intensive Mental Health Services
Individualized care designed to meet the unique mental health needs or behavioral challenges of a child and their family through services focused on empowering the family’s strengths. Using the National Wraparound Initiative Model, the child and family team collaborate to identify strengths and underlying needs to achieve the family’s vision.
Programs
Youth Empowerment Services (YES) Waiver Program
Serving youth ages 3– 18
Expanded Medicaid services including community living supports, counseling, family support services, case management, and professional and support services for children with severe emotional and/or behavioral needs to help prevent out-of-home placements and reduce psychiatric hospital re-admissions.
Youth Empowerment Services Goals
- Reduce out of home placements and inpatient psychiatric hospitalization.
- Provide better access to community based services and support.
- Provide family centered, non-traditional services.
- Prevent entry into the foster care system and relinquishment of parental custody.
- Improve the mental health and functioning of children and adolescents.
YES Eligibility
Demographic
- Youth between 3 and 18 years old
- Resident of Bexar County
- Live at home with parent or guardian, or in own home or apartment if legally emancipated.
Clinical Criteria
Serious functional impairment or severe psychiatric symptoms as indicated by:
- Risk of self-harm
- Disruptive or aggressive behavior
- Deficits in family resources
- School behavior
- Current mental health diagnosis
LOC-4 Intensive Family Services
Serving youth ages 6 – 17
LOC-4 provides comprehensive, strength-based care to underserved youth, who are at a high risk of removal from their home and/or community. Typically, the children we serve meet one or more of the following: have experienced multiple psychiatric hospitalizations, attempted various outpatient services, may be involved with the juvenile justice system, be at risk for school expulsion or suspension, or have presented serious injury to themselves, others, or animals.
LOC-4 Goals:
- To identify strengths and develop the skills that work for you and your family in being successful.
- To help decrease risk for out-of-home placements (such as psychiatric hospitalizations) and/or entry into other child-serving systems (Examples: Juvenile Justice, CPS, etc.).
- To help identify your team of natural supports and community supports.
- To provide short-term, intensive supports until your child and family can safely receive supports at a lower level of care.
- To improve your overall quality of life.
Consumers must request an Enrollment and Screening Assessment for Children’s Services to determine eligibility for Level of Care-4.
Transition Age Youth (TAY)
Serving adolescents ages 16 – 20
Mental health treatment for residents of Bexar County with a DSM-V diagnosis who want to take a more active role in their mental health treatment. Services include assessment, skills training, counseling, intensive case management, medication training and support, psychiatric evaluation and medication monitoring, caregiver training, family partner support, and wraparound facilitation.
CHCS Power Program
The CHCS POWER Program serves young adults who have begun experiencing confusion, unusual thoughts, acting in ways that seem difficult for others to understand, hearing or seeing things others don’t, withdrawing from family or friends, or becoming suspicious of other people.
Outpatient Mental Health Services for Children & Adolescents
Being mentally healthy in childhood means reaching developmental and emotional milestones, learning healthy social skills, and how to cope when problems arise. When there is a concern that a child might not be meeting these milestones, The Center offers an array of services that can help.
Our goal is to strengthen and support families by providing services for an array of issues, including:
- Sadness or depression
- Fear or anxiety
- Persistent nightmares
- Low self-esteem
- Social isolation
- Harming self or others
- Behavioral problems
- Academic problems
- Running away and truancy
- School bullying
- Parenting support
- Child abuse/assault
- Divorce
- Grief/loss
- History of trauma
Children’s mental health treatment is for Bexar County youth ages 3 – 17 with a DSM-V Diagnosis, and includes the following services:
- skills training
- counseling
- medication training and support
- psychiatric evaluation and medication monitoring
- family partner support
How to Enroll in Children's Behavioral Health Services Through the Center for Health Care Services
To enroll a child in services, start by calling (210) 261-CHCS (2427) to begin the registration process. The enrollment screening process is done Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Children’s Behavioral Health Clinic at Bandera: 6812 Bandera Road, Suite 102, San Antonio, Texas 78238.
In the event of a mental health crisis including suicidal or homicidal thoughts, please call the 24-Hour Crisis & Substance Use Helpline at 800-316-9241 or 210-223-SAFE (7233). Please call 911 if harm to self or harm to others is imminent.
The Center helps children and adolescents find hope, determine their path to wellness, and discover their way to an independent, productive life.
For more information, or to enroll in services, please call:
Children: (210) 261-CHCS (2427)
Good Children and Wellbeing: Children 101
Mental health and wellness is essential for a child to live an independent, productive life full of positive experiences. Because a child’s development begins with the love and encouragement they receive from parents and caregivers, it’s important to:
- Establish healthy habits: nutritious food, adequate sleep, and exercise
- Provide a safe and secure home
- Give children unconditional love
- Nurture a child’s confidence and self-esteem
- Make time for play
- Provide fair and consistent guidance and discipline
- Teach your children healthy ways to manage stress and bounce back from adversity
- Help your child maintain emotional balance by teaching them resiliency
- Take care of your own mental health!
