‘Absolutely life-changing’: Local program aims to help kids battle mental health issues

VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. — For more than a year, the pandemic has added to the number of children experiencing mental health challenges across Central Florida.

Now Channel 9 has learned how those with severe concerns are finding hope through our 9 Family partner, Embrace Families.

Busy 18-year-old Julian Ortiz appreciates moments with his parents, Lucy and Ester.

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You’d never know the road it’s been to get here, which started suddenly when Ortiz turned 14.

“I was just constantly upset,” he said. “I had no other emotion but just being upset 24/7.”

“He was in his house with his moms one day, and the next day, we just don’t know what’s going on,” said Ester Ortiz.

His grades tumbled.

READ: Volusia leaders look to address increase in mental health, behavioral issues in middle schoolers

Julian Ortiz skipped school and ran away every day.

Ester and Lucy Ortiz were constantly calling the police.

“I think it was maybe six or seven Baker Acts we were up to. There was talk of institutions and keeping him somewhere,” Ester Ortiz said. “We were terrified. We didn’t know what to do, who to turn to.”

The American Academy of Family Physicians finds one in six kids ages 6 to 17 experiences a mental health issue each year.

READ: Nemours Children’s Health to offer mental health help for kids in primary care offices

During the pandemic, nearly 400 children were admitted across three Central Florida hospital systems for some type of self-harm incident.

Desperate, the Ortiz family learned its struggles were a perfect fit for “Breakthrough,” a program through Embrace Families, specifically for kids battling mental health issues with a history of psychiatric holds.

The partnership through Orange County and the Federation of Families of Central Florida focuses on the family as a unit, with a surrounding team of support navigators, who offer an umbrella of wraparound services and therapy but most of all, hope.

“It’s a program that literally jumps over any bureaucratic tape that may exist in the field and it’s just tailored to help the families meet them where they’re at,” said Karla Martinez, a Breakthrough program advocate.

Video: Mental health experts seeing increase in anxiety, depression during pandemic

At first, Julian Ortiz wanted nothing to do with it, but the team’s persistence paid off.

“Breakthrough’s life-changing. Absolutely life-changing,” he said.

The program taught Julian coping skills to process his emotions.

“I don’t know any other group that could make that big of an impact in my life as they did. Definitely don’t know if you guys would be sitting here talking to me if it wasn’t there,” he said.

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Julian feels whole and is headed to college, excited for what’s ahead.

Julian hopes to study applied fire science at Daytona State College.

To date, more than 100 families have been helped by the Breakthrough program, and it’s free to those who qualify.

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