Need help finding a psychiatrist, psychologist, psychiatric nurse therapist, or treatment program? Looking for consumer information about psychiatrists and treatment program ratings or certifications?
If you’re looking for a mental health professional in your community, here are some tips and online resources to get you started. If you have a physician whom you trust, that can be a good place to begin. Talk to school counselors, too—they may be able to provide a recommendation. Ask everyone you feel comfortable talking to if they know of anyone good. If you find someone on one of the sites below, you should do your own background check. Also included below is information about finding peer support to help you cope and connect with available resources.
www.samhsa.gov: The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has a treatment locator, an online source of information for people seeking treatment facilities in the United States or US territories for substance abuse/addiction and/or mental health problems. To access the treatment locator, click on the box that says “Behavioral Health Treatment Locator” in the “Find Help” menu and enter your city or zip code. If you click on the service you are looking for—say, mental health—you can further narrow your search. This is a resource that my crisis line uses frequently to find local help for our callers.
www.psychologytoday.com: Psychology Today has an online database of psychologists, therapists, counselors, group therapy, and treatment centers in the United States and Canada. The site allows you to search by location and specialty. Information on each specialist includes a bio, qualifications, accepted insurance plans, and client focus. Professionals pay a fee to be listed and provide the content for the database. It’s a good starting point, but, as with all the sites, you need to do your own background checking. Enter your zip code or city, and click on the “Find a Therapist” link.
www.abct.org: The Association for Behavioral & Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) website includes a CBT therapist database. Click on the “Find a CBT Therapist” link and enter your location. This database includes only ABCT members.
www.aacap.org: Use the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s (AACAP’s) “Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist Finder” link on the main page to find a child and adolescent psychiatrist near you. Also included on this website is a series of very informative guides, called “ParentsMedGuide” (for ADHD, bipolar disorder, and depression) and “PhysiciansMedGuide,” which were designed to help individuals make informed decisions about childhood and adolescent depression treatment. This site also includes information on clinical trials—what they are, who conducts them, and how to participate.
clinicaltrials.gov: This is a registry-and-results database of publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants conducted around the world. Check this site for available clinical trials if you are interested in participating.
www.healthgrades.com: On this website, you can look up doctors and child and adolescent psychiatrists by location and specialty. The site provides board certifications, education, experience, philosophy, and patient satisfaction ratings and identifies sanctions, board actions, and malpractice claims, if any.
consumer.ftc.gov: The Federal Trade Commission provides consumer information on residential treatment programs for teens and “troubled youth,” as well as guidance on what to look for, links to program certifications, and other sources of information for parents. Enter “Residential Treatment Programs for Teens” in the search button.
http://familyorgdirectory.fmhi.usf.edu/map.cfm: Would having peer support, a parent who also has a child that struggles with mental health issues, be helpful to you? The National Directory of Family-run and Youth-guided Organizations for Children's Behavioral Health lists family run organizations by state and provides a brief description of the services the organizations provide. A number of these organizations offer some sort of peer support for parents as well as on-line support. To find organizations that offer peer support, click on your state in the map at the link above. Note that the National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health provides the only national certification for a parent/family peer workforce, known as Certified Family Peer Specialists™. These specialists are trained to provide support to other families who have children with emotional, behavioral and mental health challenges.