Inside Pediatrics Spring/Summer 2024

BEHAVIORAL HEALTH

LIAM’S JOURNEY HOW A CALL TO THE PSYCHIATRIC INTAKE RESPONSE CENTER CHANGED A BOY’S LIFE

S tefanie Blakely was at a work event one night in October 2022, when she received a text message that would leave almost any parent in shock. It was from her 12-year-old son, Liam. He was considering suicide.

wondering how to help Liam, Stefanie remembered it. She pulled into a parking lot, looked up the number and called. The PIRC is a phone response center for adults seeking mental health resources for their children or adolescents. Callers can have free, confidential conversations with licensed mental health clinicians who assess a child or teen’s mental, emotional and behavioral needs and recommend the best treatment options, including the contact information of multiple mental health professionals in their community. “For our PIRC therapists, it’s been a very rewarding experience for them to be able to talk to folks who need that help and who are looking to do the right thing for their child. They are getting an opportunity to be there in that moment,” PIRC director Cindy Jones said. “And answering callers’ questions, we do notice a lot of times that if we are there for them, that it decreases the anxiety and the stress level and the frustration that a lot of parents or caregivers or whomever have while trying to find those right resources.”

“I just felt like the world stopped completely,” Stefanie said.

Scared and nervous, Stefanie felt she needed to get to Liam immediately. But he was on the other side of town, and she worried she might not be able to get to him quickly enough to keep him safe. She left the event and drove to pick him up, calling and texting with him along the way. When she arrived, Liam shared the emotions that led to his text. He was still upset. “I just was really lost as a parent trying to figure out what the best resource was for my son at that point,” Stefanie said. Stefanie works at Children’s of Alabama and was familiar with the hospital’s Psychiatric Intake Response Center, or PIRC. Liam’s therapist also had mentioned it. While driving down the road

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