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Youth services
If someone is in crisis
Call or text 988 if you or someone you want to help is experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis.
The team at Crisis Connections can help resolve your crisis on the phone, send teams from YMCA to respond in-person as needed to help youth and their families, and schedule assessment appointments for the next day. Crisis services are available to everyone in King County 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To learn more, visit the Crisis Services webpage.
Mental Health Services
King County invests in promoting the mental health of youth, outpatient and inpatient treatment and specialized services. To connect to mental health services, call Client Services: 206-263-8997 or contact one of our child and youth providers directly.
School-Based Health Centers
King County School Based Health Centers: King County operates 36 clinics in elementary, middle, and high schools that provide healthcare visits to students, including for mental health and substance use disorder.
Outpatient and Inpatient Treatment
Find youth providers offering outpatient or inpatient treatment
Next Day Assessment Appointments: The first step to connect to treatment is to get an assessment and referral. Youth and their families can call 988 to get a mental health assessment within 24 hours with a provider.
Get a referral: Contact any of the contracted King County child and youth providers. Families may also call the Mental Health Plan toll-free referral number at 1-800-790-8049. Referrals are also made through the Early Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment (EPSDT) program.
Eligible children and families include:
- All Medicaid funded children who meet the medical necessity criteria
- All non-Medicaid funded children who meet medical necessity criteria and whose family income is no greater than 300% of the federal poverty guidelines.
Medical necessity criteria includes:
- mental health diagnosis,
- symptoms related to that diagnosis,
- level of functioning across life domains, and
- conditions and circumstances that may contribute to the mental health diagnosis.
Services provided to children under the age of 13 must have parent or guardian consent. Services for youth aged 13 and older must be agreed to by that youth or be ordered as a condition of a less restrictive involuntary treatment order. Parents may also seek outpatient services for their youth, without the youth’s consent (RCW 71.34.650). With the exception of involuntary commitment, all services are voluntary.
Specialized Services
King County offers specialized services for children and youth to address needs not already available under the Mental Health Plan. A sample of these services include:
- Wraparound Programs: Coordinated cross systems teams that reduce or eliminate barriers to service for the hardest to serve individuals.
- Evidence-based programs: Research-based Multi-Systemic Therapy (MST) and Functional Family Therapy (FFT) services to eligible youth in the juvenile justice system.
- Juvenile Justice Mental Health Liaisons: Seattle Children’s Home provides mental health liaison services (screening/assessment, linkage to appropriate service providers) to youth in detention and/or on probation in King County.
- Children’s Long-Term Inpatient Programs (CLIP): Long-term inpatient psychiatric treatment through the state-managed CLIP programs for eligible children.
Substance Use Services
Find youth providers who offer substance use treatment
Early Interventions
- School-Based Health Clinics: King County operates 36 clinics in elementary, middle, and high schools that provide healthcare visits to students.
- Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT): Early identification and brief interventions for youth at-risk of substance use disorders is offered in more than 60 middle and high schools.
Treatment
- Next Day Assessment Appointments: The first step to connect to treatment is to get an assessment and referral. Youth and their families can call the Washington Recovery Line to get an assessment for substance use within 24 hours with a provider.
- Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD): MOUD Locator
- 24/7 Bup Prescription Line for ages 13 and older: 206-289-0287
- Ryther and Kaiser Permanente
- NeighborCare's Youth Clinic can accept youth walk-ins for Buprenorphine inductions.
- Available for youth on a case-by-case basis with the following providers: Seattle Indian Health Board, Swedish, Harborview Pediatric Clinic, Evergreen Treatment Services, NeighborCare, HealthPoint, Country Doctor, Greenlake Primary Care, Ideal Option, Emerald City Medical Art
- Outpatient Programs: Find providers for youth offering outpatient services that address both mental health and substance use.
- Residential Treatment for Substance Use: Sea Mar/Renacer
- Juvenile Therapeutic Response and Accountability Court-Behavioral Health Response: Provides support and treatment to youth charged with criminal offenses who have a substance use disorder.
Recovery
- Interagency’s Recovery Academy is a public sober high school in Seattle that helps teens and young people in recovery from substance use disorder.
- Alternative peer groups, and other community-based mental health and substance use supports are also essential components of the recovery process for youth and families.
How to Connect:
King County’s Client Services: 206-263-8997, M-F 8am-5pm (Connects Medicaid clients to all services)
Washington Recovery Line: 866-789-1511, 24 hours/7 days a week (Connects youth with substance use challenges to someone to talk/listen, appointments with a provider the next day and treatment)
Teen Link: 866-833-6546, 6-10pm (Connects teens with teen peers in Washington to talk/listen)
Family Involvement with Youth
Partnerships with families and youth are vital to the success of the child-serving mental health system. Professionals are most effective when supporting families in finding solutions. Families are seen as the experts on their child/youth. Their constant presence in the lives of their children is recognized.
Families and youth are viewed as partners and advisors, not just as clients. Through these partnerships, the family voice is heard, and families have a say in individual services, policy and program development, and service design.
Parent Networks of Support
These organizations were originally funded as part of a federal grant called Children & Families in Common as a way to help promote and organize the family movement in King County. The goal of the Networks of Support is to provide ongoing support, resources, and mentoring/peer counseling to parents and caregivers raising children with complex emotional, behavioral, or mental disorders. The Networks of Support hold regular, monthly support group meetings, and provide:
- Time-limited “Parent Partner” Peer Counseling to parents
- Help for parents and caregivers in learning to navigate the complicated children’s systems
- Advocacy for families of youth with serious emotional disturbances.
- Training in Wraparound/Parent/Professional Partnership and Peer Counseling in partnership with local family organizations.
For more information on the Networks of Support, including meeting dates and times, please contact the Parent Coordinator at:
Sound Mental Health – Eastside
14216 NE 21st Street
Bellevue, WA
425-653-4917
Sound Mental Health – Metro
2719 East Madison, Ste. 200
Seattle, WA 98112
206-302-2344
Valley Cities Counseling & Consultation
2704 I Street NE
Auburn, WA 98002
253-833-7444
Youth ‘N Action (formerly Health ‘N Action) is a diverse youth advocacy group that brings youth voice to systems and policy. Youth ‘N Action members are between the ages of 14 and 21 who have been involved with one or more child serving system. The group meets bi-monthly. Members support each other in positive choice and lifestyle. Members mentor other youth in the community and are role models for all youth, but particularly for young people who have been involved in the service systems. Youth ‘N Action also provides youth voice to policy and decision making and has been nationally recognized for its advocacy efforts.
Other Family Resources and Organizations:
- A Village Project
- Statewide Action for Family Empowerment (SAFE-WA)
- National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health