Text-messaging Intervention to Support Parents After Their Child's Psychiatric Emergency

This grant aims to develop and test a text-messaging intervention for parents of children and teens evaluated in the emergency department for a psychiatric emergency and discharged home with outpatient referrals. The intervention for parents will teach parents skills to navigate the mental health services system and build their self-efficacy in managing their child's mental health. This research has the potential to improve services for families seeking emergency psychiatric support, with the goal of facilitating treatment engagement and reducing emergency services utilization using scalable, cost-effective, accessible tools.