Children and youth experiencing severe mental health issues are rarely regarded as a high priority by state and federal ?policymakers.
But that is beginning to change in the Hoosier state.
There has been a great deal of discussion lately between social services providers regarding the best structure for meeting the needs of these youth and their families.
The resulting product is the Children’s Mental Health Initiative, a sophisticated, albeit controversial, network of social services agencies overseen by the Indiana Department of ?Child Services.
Although criticized by many for its bureaucratic structure, the Children’s Mental Health Initiative is a strong step in the right direction for how our state government recognizes those with severe mental health issues.
Many of the children that come into the program are already receiving the maximum level of care their medical coverage will allow for; unfortunately, said care has not proven itself adequate, as the children and their families are still ?struggling tremendously.
In an interview with the Indianapolis Star, John Cole, the father of a young boy who is currently receiving services via this initiative, attempted to summarize his family’s challenges: “I’d say we were helpless, but it’s almost like we were prisoners in our own home, too.” Cole and his wife adopted their son from the foster care system when the child was three years old. After six months in their home, their son was taken to a local ?hospital for psychiatric stay.
Diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome, pervasive developmental disability, mood disorders, feeding disorder, seizures and more, it quickly became clear that the Coles’ son would be in need of a variety of costly resources the family’s insurance could not sufficiently cover.
Many families across the state have been faced with difficult situations ?similar to the Coles’.
Since it was founded, more than 1,600 children have been referred to the voluntary program by a social worker or other service professional.
About a quarter of these children have been approved for the program and received services funded by the initiative.
Many of these children receive outpatient and in-home care which allows them to remain with their families. Others have needed to attend in-patient psychiatric care or have ended up in the juvenile justice system.
Family welfare advocates saw a need for a network initiative such as this when many families were left with no other choice but to feign the neglect of their child, which resulted in the child being taken into state custody and thus receiving funded mental health services.
As is typical with any sort of social welfare reform, the major areas of concern critics have voiced regarding the initiative are the appropriation of state funds and the questionable use of evidence-based, goal-focused case management.
Dissenters believe the program is spending money without a clear goal in mind, raising concerns about what the $10.7 million DCS spent on the program in its first year have specifically benefited. Some critics are concerned the initiative’s networking is too loose, resulting in the setting of muddy or contradictory goals for each client.
Though it is not without its faults, the Children’s Mental Health Initiative is the sort of field-oriented policy work we need to see more of from DCS.
sjdickma@indiana.edu
