Frankfurt/Main (dpa/lhe) - Children and young people with mental needs from the Rhine-Main area have been able to find help more quickly in Frankfurt for nine months. Since the start of the "Psychological Emergency Aid" in Frankfurt last August, a good 245 girls and boys have visited the facility, as the Frankfurt University Clinic and the Children's Aid Foundation announced on Monday in an initial summary. The pilot project was launched by the foundation and the child and adolescent psychiatric department of the university hospital.
According to the report, the children and young people named fears and worries (34 percent) as the most common reason for going to emergency aid. Twenty-six percent reported persistent sadness. In addition, it was about behavioral problems, self-injurious behavior or eating and sleeping problems.
The emergency aid team found that 42 percent of those seeking advice had a "clearly recognizable" mental illness, and five percent even had a serious illness. The majority of children and adolescents between the ages of 6 and 18 (63 percent) suffered from a moderately severe mental illness.
"Especially in times like these, more and more children and young people need psychological support, as the previous figures indicate," said the director of child and adolescent psychiatry, Prof. Christine M. Freitag. "Fast professional help is important, especially with mental problems," said the Hessian Health Minister Kai Klose (Greens) according to the announcement. The Frankfurt facility gives the children and young people important support.
The "Psychological Emergency Aid" is intended to serve as the first point of contact - and to offer the boys and girls rapid support. "It can currently take weeks to months for people with mental health problems to get an appointment in a psychological or psychiatric practice," the initiators said. In emergency aid, they are usually given an appointment for a 30-minute intensive consultation within 14 days.
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