MENTALLY ILL YOUTHS NEED CARE, NOT JAIL

Determined to set things right, or at least to help get them on a
track to improvement, the mother of a Fort Bend County teen said she
spends a couple of hours every morning on the telephone.

She calls anyone she can think of who might know some answers or have
some good advice to offer. She calls anyone she suspects might have
some authority to investigate, or castigate, or legislate, or do
anything to make things better.

She tells them what happened to her son. Tells how he suffered a
psychotic event, and was physically subdued and then confined in the
county's juvenile detention center for several days. Tells how that
delayed the qualified psychiatric treatment he needed for his mental
illness, how it worsened his condition.

She asks what can be done and how she can help get it done right
away. But the answers are few. Any improvements, apparently, will be
slow in coming.

She provides to those people she calls many more details about her
son's situation, but she asked me not to get too specific in relating
the story as she fears reprisals. Her son's case still is involved in
the criminal justice system.

Concerned about treatment

The mother of another Fort Bend County teen-ager who has a mental
illness said that she, too, feared reprisals if her identity was
revealed. But she said she is so concerned about her son's treatment
at a county boot camp facility that she is preparing to take her
complaints to state or federal officials.

Both parents of one teen and the mother of the other met Tuesday
morning with Tom Hamilton, president of the 10,000-member Texas
affiliate of NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill).

Hamilton currently is deeply involved in trying to get our lawmakers
in Austin to vote for improved mental health care, which would enable
a great many young people to remain free of the criminal justice
system.

He said the situations faced by these two Fort Bend County teen-agers
and their families are, unfortunately, not unusual. He has heard
similar stories by the gross. And you can find them all across the
land.

A report from the U.S. surgeon general's conference on Children's
Mental Health in September says, "Too often, children who are not
identified as having mental health problems and who do not receive
services end up in the juvenile justice system."

In the 2000 Annual Report of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice in
Washington, a paragraph on page 42 says: "In the area of treatment,
juvenile justice and mental health professionals have a good idea of
what doesn't work. As single-solution, one-shot `treatments,'
traditional incarceration, home confinement, unstructured counseling,
`scared straight' programs and boot camps are typically ineffective
for mental illness. In some situations, they can actually worsen
mental illness and produce a higher recidivism rate than no treatment
at all."

It is a huge problem that continues to grow. The World Health
Organization says that within 20 years, childhood neuropsychiatric
disorders will become one of the five most common causes of childhood
morbidity, mortality and disability.

In the United States, 10 percent of our children and adolescents
suffer from mental illness severe enough to cause impairment,
according to the surgeon general's report. "Yet, in any given year,"
it says, "fewer than 1 in 5 of these children receives needed
treatment."

No single office holds the key

Hamilton encouraged the parents, telling them it takes enormous
personal and emotional capital to understand how the system works and
how best to deal with the issues they face.

One mother said that in seeking help with her son's situation, she
has contacted Advocacy Inc., a federally funded legal rights
organization for disabled people, and also has contacted the office
of state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston.

Hamilton said such calls may help but, unfortunately, there is no one
office or agency that holds the key to improving conditions. His
recommendation to these parents, and any others interested in the
issue, is to meet with their county leaders, "draw them out, work
with them, lay out some ways to help them improve."

Let's end this by quoting the opening sentence of that surgeon
general's report: "The burden of suffering experienced by children
with mental health needs and their families has created a health
crisis in this country."