When a child needs inpatient psychiatric care with Kia Carter, M.D.

As parents, we sometimes find ourselves unsure of how to respond to something our child has said. If a child or teen says they don’t want to be alive anymore, what should you do? This is the question we asked Kia Carter, M.D., medical director of Inpatient Psychiatry at Cook Children’s Medical Center. Dr. Carter oversees a 15-bed psychiatry unit at the Rees Jones Behavioral Health Center at Cook Children’s. In this episode of Raising Joy, Dr. Carter explains when you should take your child to the emergency room for mental health concerns, and what admission into the psychiatry unit is like for the patient and their family. Raising Joy is part of Cook Children’s Health Care System’s Joy Campaign, a communications initiative aimed at preventing youth suicides. For more information about the Joy Campaign, visit cookchildrens.org/joy.