In a report released by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, 36% of the respondants stated that their mentally ill children were in the juvenile justice system because of the unavailability of mental health services. Nearly 25% of these parents said they'd been told they would have to give up their children before they could get mental health care and 17% responding to the survey reported that they had relinquished their parental rights because it was the only way they could hope to get their child help. Now how sad is that?
NAMI's own executive director, Laurie Flynn, said in response to this survey, "The suffering that this report gives voice to deeply saddens and outrages me, not only because these are the voices of mothers and fathers who must try to comprehend why their loved one, their child, has a brain disorder, but because they find themselves all too often having to fight for every shred of medical attention. In the face of this struggle, they confront the unimaginable but all-too-real risks of family dissolution, financial bankruptcy, wrongful imprisonment of their child, and even the prospect of having to give up custody of their child just to get him or her treatment."
I've mentioned the Surgeon General's Report which focuses entirely on Mental Illness, and this year the Surgeon General's National Agenda on Children’s Mental Health was released. The goals for this agenda include family education programs that will help parents recognize early signs of mental illness, increased education of health care professionals, teachers, school counselors, coaches, social workers, etc, continued scientific research, connecting research and practice to public policy on access to care, and raising public awareness and reducing the stigma associated with mental illness. There are many issues the agenda addresses, these are but a few.
