Crisis Intervention for Older Adults and Adults with Mental Illness

If someone is in immediate danger

If your loved one is in immediate danger, call 911. If you are worried about suicide or a mental health emergency, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at any hour. Once the immediate danger is handled, call us. We help with everything that follows.

What counts as a crisis?

A crisis is any moment when the usual arrangements stop working and something has to change now. Families call us when:

• A parent has fallen, been hospitalized or come home from the ER and cannot be left alone.
• The main caregiver, often a spouse, is suddenly sick, hospitalized or has died.
• A home care aide quits or an agency stops service with no replacement.
• A loved one with dementia has wandered, become aggressive or stopped eating.
• Psychiatric symptoms are escalating: paranoia, mania, severe depression, talk of not wanting to live.
• An assisted living community or group home says your loved one can no longer stay.
• Police, Adult Protective Services or a neighbor has raised serious concerns.

What we do in a crisis

1. Listen and sort out what is most urgent. In a crisis, everything feels urgent. We help you separate what must happen today from what can wait until tomorrow.
2. Get there. We go to your loved one, at home, at the hospital or at their residence, to see the situation for ourselves.
3. Make it safe. That might mean arranging emergency in-home help, a short-term respite stay, family coverage, or a medical or psychiatric evaluation.
4. Talk with the professionals. We speak with ER staff, doctors, hospital social workers, police or facility administrators so your family has an experienced voice in the room.
5. Help with decisions. We explain options clearly and give you our honest view.
6. Plan the next step. Once the immediate crisis is over, we help put a plan in place so it does not happen again.

Psychiatric crises and hospitalizations

This is an area where our backgrounds make a real difference. Lisa and Kim have worked for decades in psychiatric hospitals, outpatient mental health clinics, residential treatment and community mental health and addiction services. We understand how psychiatric emergency evaluation works, what happens when someone needs inpatient care, and how to talk with a person in distress in a way that lowers the temperature instead of raising it.

When psychiatric hospitalization is needed, we help families understand the process, stay in communication with the treatment team, and focus early on discharge planning, which is often where things go wrong. We make sure there is a real plan for medications, outpatient care, housing and support. Our mental health care management service can continue that support after the crisis passes.

Our part does not end at discharge. We stay involved to connect the person with community resources, and we keep building a relationship grounded in respect and in valuing them as a human being. Over time, many of our clients come to see us as their advocate and a steady, trusted person they can count on when things get hard again.

How it works with us

Call us as soon as you can. If we already work with your family, we know the history and can move quickly. If we do not, we will ask focused questions to understand what is happening and what help is needed right now. After the crisis is under control, we usually recommend a full care assessment so we can address the conditions that led to it.

Many crises can be prevented, or at least softened, with regular monitoring. Families who have been through one often choose ongoing care management so someone is watching for early warning signs.

What families tell us they value

Families tell us that what helped most was having someone calm and experienced take charge when they were frightened and exhausted. They value our ability to talk with hospitals, police and facilities in their own language. They appreciate honest advice, even when it is hard to hear, and help with the decisions they never wanted to face. Above all, they say it mattered not to be alone.

Crisis support in North Jersey and Rockland County

We respond to crises involving older adults and adults with mental illness or disabilities throughout Essex, Bergen, Passaic, Morris, Union, Hudson and northern Middlesex counties and across Rockland County, NY.