The Child and Youth Mental Health Urgent Consult Clinic is located on Brock 5 of Kingston Health Sciences Centre's (KHSC) Hotel Dieu Hospital site. It sees children and youth who are presenting with suicidal / homicidal ideation, have made threats of violence, have dyscontrol due to drugs or psychosis, or other urgent mental health concerns that require an immediate risk assessment. Our emergency department and urgent care centre have priority, however, we also review and serve, if time is available, referrals from family physicians, school boards and children’s mental health agencies. As this clinic is for urgent risk assessment we strive to schedule patients within 48-hours of receipt of referral, except on weekends and holidays.
The Urgent Consult Clinic is staffed by a social worker, registered nurse, behavioural therapist, psychometrist (psychological associate) and a child & youth psychiatrist. This clinic is part of KHSC and the Division or Child and Youth Psychiatry at Queen’s University, and as a learning institution we train general psychiatry residents, child and youth psychiatry residents/fellows and pediatric residents. Field placements are also provided for psychology, social work, nursing and behavioural therapy students.
The Urgent Consult Clinic provides rapid access to risk assessments by trained and compassionate staff. This assessment includes a full history, which may be taken by a resident social worker or nurse who consults with the psychiatrist; the psychiatrist provides the diagnosis and a treatment plan which may include medication and/or brief crisis-oriented interventions (4-6 sessions). Brief crisis interventions are provided by the clinic nurse or social worker and for children less than 12 years of age by the behavioral therapist. After assessment, patients and their families are provided with referrals to other community resources as needed, provided brief intervention or in some cases referred for admission to our inpatient psychiatric unit located at KHSC's Kingston General Hospital site.
The clinic has dedicated tele-psychiatry through the Ontario Tele-Health Network (OTN) for patients and families who live more than an hour away from the clinic.
Contact Information
Phone: 613-544-3400 extension 2518
Fax: 613-544-4643
Learn how to make a referral to the Urgent Consult Clinic here.
