Mental health services, including counseling, medications, or specialized therapies, may be beneficial for children with behavioral or emotional problems. However, these services may not be readily available to all children who need them.

Overall, 58.7 percent of children who have an ongoing emotional, developmental, or behavioral problem that requires treatment or counseling received mental health care or counseling in the past year. Older children are more likely to receive mental health care; 63.8 percent of children ages 12-17 with emotional, developmental, or behavioral problems received mental health care, compared to 58.7 percent of 6- to 11-year-olds and 38.5 percent of children age 5 and under with emotional, developmental, or behavioral problems that require treatment or counseling.

Children with health insurance, public or private, are also more likely to receive the mental health services they need. Of children with emotional, developmental, or behavioral problems who have private insurance, 63.2 percent receive needed mental health services, as do 58.6 percent of publicly- insured children. Of children with emotional, developmental, or behavioral problems without health insurance who needed mental health care, only 33.8 percent received any mental health care or counseling during the past year.