Back-to-School Mental Health Toolkit from Intermountain Health

As families gather school supplies, backpacks and clothes, Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital recommends an addition to your back-to-school checklist: A mental health toolkit.

The number of kids needing mental health support typically starts to rise as students head back to school.

One in five 3-to-17-year-old children nationally face a mental, emotional, developmental, or behavioral disorder. Additionally, suicide remains a leading cause of death for Utah youth. Last year, 43 percent of Utah youth who felt sad, hopeless, or suicidal reported that they did not talk to anyone about it.

Intermountain Primary Children’s experts say that if parents have concerns about their children, they shouldn’t wait to act. Here’s a mental health toolkit they recommend all Utah parents add to their back-to-school checklist to prepare for the upcoming school year:

Mental Health Toolkit Contents:

1. Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital Talk to Tweens Resources.

These resources, from the experts at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital, can help parents and teachers start conversations with children and help them identify, express, and manage their feelings in a healthy way. The free “Talk to Tweens” tools, which can downloaded in both English and Spanish at TalkToTweens.org and hableconsusjovenes.org, include conversation starters, a downloadable Feelings Wheel, and additional tips for families.

2. Free Assessment, Referral, Consultation Service (ARCS): 801-313-7711.

This statewide service can help families learn about and connect to services that are available for children close to their communities.

3. Free In-Home Stabilization and Mobile Response: 1-833-SAFE-FAM.

This service dispatches a team to homes in moments of need to help stabilize children in crisis.

4. Utah Crisis Hotline: 988.

This resource offers free support if you or someone you love, adult or child, is in crisis.

5. Pediatric Crisis Assessments Available 24/7.

This resource is available through the emergency departments at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital campuses in Salt Lake City and Lehi.

6. Partial Hospitalization Programs at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital.

These programs are available at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital locations including, the Miller Family Campus in Lehi, the Salt Lake Campus, the Wasatch Canyons campus in Taylorsville, and soon, at Intermountain St. George Regional Hospital.

7. Call 911 or Take Your Child to the Nearest Hospital Emergency Department.

Use this resource in the event of self-harm, a suicide attempt, or any other life-threatening emergency.

“We recommend parents put the phone numbers in this toolkit in their mobile phones, on their refrigerators, or anywhere else they can be easily accessed in a time of need,” said Ashley Schlaich, behavioral health outpatient services director at Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital, Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Campus in Lehi.

“If parents have concerns about their child, we want them to call our expanded Assessment, Referral Consultation Service at 801-313-7711 so we can talk through their concerns and connect them to services in their community or through Primary Children’s Hospital right away,” Schlaich added. “We are here to help, and more help is on the way.”

Intermountain Children’s Health is also expanding critically needed mental health services for children and teens in crisis.

The Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital, Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Campus in Lehi has an entire floor dedicated to providing behavioral health services to children.

The new Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital Behavioral Health Center is a 90,000-square-foot facility under construction in Taylorsville, on the hospital’s Wasatch Canyons campus. It opens in 2025, and will include:

• A nearly 50 percent increase in inpatient beds
• A walk-in-crisis center
• The state’s first dedicated behavioral health inpatient unit to provide mental health crisis care tailored for youth with autism and neuro-diverse needs
• Family-centered behavioral healthcare, including the ability for parents to stay overnight
• Outpatient spaces designed for more intensive outpatient treatment, day treatment, and group therapy programs.

Behavioral health is one of the key areas under Primary Promise, Intermountain’s historic campaign to build the nation’s model health system for children. Philanthropic support is still needed to help complete the new facility, help more children grow up stronger, and even save lives.

To learn more or to make a gift, visit intermountainhealthcare.org/foundation/primary-promise. For other information, visit primarychildrens.org.

About Intermountain Health

Headquartered in Utah with locations in six states and additional operations across the western U.S., Intermountain Health is a nonprofit system of 34 hospitals, 400 clinics, medical groups with some 4,600 employed physicians and advanced care providers, a health plans division called Select Health with more than one million members, and other health services. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is committed to improving community health and is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare by using evidence-based best practices to consistently deliver high-quality outcomes at sustainable costs. For more information or updates, see https://intermountainhealthcare.org/news.