Fast Break - Mobile Mental Health Treatment Clinic for Children

Children are the first and most deeply affected by homelessness, loss, violence and disaster and are the family members least able to withstand the emotional battering of poverty. Research has shown that children living in poverty experience emotional and behavioral problems at a significantly higher rate than children who are not poor. ABC established New York City's first mobile mental health crisis and disaster team for children in 1994.

This mobile mental health clinic serves children who have not had access to traditional psychotherapeutic services. Fast Break, headquartered at Echo Park, helps children and families cope with severe emotional pain.

ABC's mental health staff also responds to crises and disasters which have included school shootings, suicides, church fires, plane crashes, the terror attacks, accidental deaths and murders by providing mental health assessment, counseling, support and therapeutic childcare.

Mental health services include psychiatric, psychological, educational evaluation and treatment interventions in a wide array of modalities, including play therapy and individual, group and family counseling as well as cognitive-behavioral and psycho-pharmacological treatment. ABC's team of psychiatrists, psychologists and psychiatric social workers can be summoned by parents, mental health workers, police officers, school personnel, any caring adults or the children themselves. The mental health staff goes wherever a child is most comfortable, whether that is at home, at school, at a youth program, in a playground or in the street, and works with insight, devotion and compassion to provide immediate, substantial and long-term relief for each child.