EDITORIAL: Maine's child welfare focus should extend to kids' mental health treatment
Bangor Daily NewsSep 19, 2018
The review is long overdue and much needed. It's a positive development that the state has retained a consultant to examine the system's strengths and weaknesses, hear from children and families who depend on mental health services, and develop recommendations for moving forward. It will be the first such comprehensive review of children's mental health services since 1997.
The review comes as hundreds of children with behavior disorders, autism, cognitive impairments and other mental health challenges, especially in rural areas, are on waitlists for services delivered in their homes and local communities. It comes as the state has sent dozens of children to out-of-state treatment facilities due to a lack of available treatment in
And the review comes as children with mental illness continue to end up at
The new federal audit, from the
The audit, released Monday, focused on the treatment of children in foster care with psychotropic medications, and it focused on
Children in foster care are many times more likely than others to be treated with psychiatric medications. They're more likely than the population at large to need mental health treatment. They've been through the trauma of removal from their families, long periods of limbo as their family and living situations remain unsettled, potentially multiple foster care placements, and even nights spent in hotels with child welfare caseworkers. They're also caught in a situation in which multiple parties are responsible for their well-being, including foster parents, their child welfare caseworkers and their birth parents. With responsibility dispersed, children's needs are more likely to fall through the cracks.
"These kids are set up for mental health problems," Dr.
Gov.
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