On Special Education

The National Center for Children in Poverty, based at Columbia University in New York, has released a report that shows that states are still struggling to deliver adequate care to children and youth with mental health problems.

The study revisits a topic that was explored in another report, Unclaimed Children, more than 25 years ago. According to researchers, there have been improvements since that time, but only seven states report "consistent support for children and youth across the age span, among young children, school-age children and youth transitioning to adulthood."

However, in an article in USA Today about the report, mental health advocates suggest that even some of the states that say they're doing a good job may be providing too positive a spin on their efforts.

Judging by experiences of parents, the report "seems too rosy," says Darcy Gruttadaro, children's issues director at the National Alliance on Mental Illness. "A lot of them have programs, but they often have long waiting lists too, so families just can't get good care for their kids."

Posted by Christina Samuels at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes my blog subjects and my newspaper stories match up quite nicely: last week, around the same time I read and blogged about a story in Newsweek about a young child with bipolar disorder, I wrote a short column for the newspaper on "systems of care."

(Access to Edweek.org is free through June 10)

"Systems of care" does not describe a specific program. Instead, it outlines a philosophy of providing services to children with behavior disorders and their families. The idea is that a partnership of public and private resources -- schools, public agencies, mental health providers -- can be more successful in meeting a family's needs.

That makes sense to me. Who has time to navigate a mental health system when you have a sick child? One-stop shopping seems to be the best way to make sure that a family gets the help it needs.

I found out during the interview for my column that Gary M. Blau, a branch chief in the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration had read the same Newsweek article about the child with bipolar disorder. It seemed to him that the family that the story profiled was not involved in a "systems of care" program model; if so, they might not have had to struggle so hard and so long to find appropriate help for their child. The programs aren't a perfect solution for every situation, but they do prove that when it comes to helping families, there is strength in several agencies working together, he believes.

Several school districts have taken the lead in bringing "systems of care"-style programs to their communities. You can read more about these programs and the work they do at www.systemsofcare.samhsa.gov.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)