Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

The Intersection of Foster Care and Mental Health

Excerpt from: Disability Blog (click for full article)

 

May is recognized as both National Foster Care Awareness Month and Mental Health Awareness Month.  What most people do not realize is the overlap that often occurs with these populations.

In the United States, there are more than 400,000 children and teens in foster care.  Research reveals that children and teens in the foster care system have disproportionately high rates of psychiatric disability. 

One study by the National Institute of Mental Health found that nearly half (47.9 percent) of youth in foster care were found to have clinically significant emotional or behavioral problems.  Likewise, researchers at the Casey Family Programs estimate that between one-half and three-fourths of children entering foster care exhibit behavioral or social competency problems that warrant mental health services.

More kids diagnosed with mental health disabilities

Excerpt from: Health 24 (click for full article)

 

Significantly more US children have a neurodevelopmental or mental health disability than did a decade ago, according to new research.

Disabilities that impair a child's day-to-day living have risen 16%, with the greatest increase seen in richer families, according to the study. Conditions such as autism or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder appear to lie behind the increase, experts said.

But the surveys of parents in 2001-'02 and 2009-'10 also revealed some good news: The rate of disability due to physical conditions went down, according to the study, which is scheduled for presentation at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting in Washington DC. Data and conclusions presented at meetings are typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

Mental Health Counseling Week and Disability

Excerpt from: Atlantic Highlands Herald (click for full article)

 

Besides having penned this newspaper column about disability since 2002, I'm also a licensed professional counselor and national certified counselor.

Recently, the American Mental Health Counselors Association (AMHCA) sent an email to its membership declaring May 6-12 as "Mental Health Counseling Week" and urging all AMHCA members to "set aside time during (the week) to participate in local activities to promote and reinforce the importance of mental health."

So today I'm tossing in my two cents. A disproportional percentage of people with disabilities also have a mental illness.

Overall, America is becoming more "disabled" as its population skews older and medical science becomes more skilled at preserving the lives of people with medical issues. The number of people claiming disability benefits is skyrocketing. The federal government generally determines a person has a disability when that person has a significant impairment in any major life function, such as walking, seeing or thinking.

Mental Health America Applauds Senate Passage of Mental Health Awareness and Improvement Act

Excerpt from: Mental Health America (click for full article)

 

The Mental Health Awareness and Improvement Act reauthorizes and improves programs administered by both the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services related to awareness, prevention, and early identification of mental health conditions, and the promotion of linkages to appropriate services for children and youth. MHA commends Senators Harkin and Alexander for crafting S. 689, which was unanimously approved by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on April 10th.

Mental Health America is particularly pleased that the legislation reauthorizes important federal programs such as the Garrett Lee Smith suicide prevention programs for states and college campuses as well as the National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative (NCTSI) which supports a national network of child trauma centers. This bipartisan legislation also includes provisions to improve access to mental health care in schools (Mental Health in Schools Act). Additionally S. 689 authorizes a new federal Mental Health Awareness Training program modeled on the Mental Health First Aid legislation.

Mental Health America recognizes that this vote is an important first step. There is critical work yet to be done.  We urge the Senate to take up other important mental health initiatives, such as the Excellence in Mental Health Act, MIOTCRA, and seclusion and restraint legislation. Mental Health America pledges to continue working with Congress to pass these initiatives given the raised awareness of mental health issues and the critical need for services and supports included in this package. Our time is now.

Feds To Move Away From DSM

Excerpt from: Disability Scoop (click for full article)

 

Just weeks before a new version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is scheduled for release, the head of the National Institute of Mental Health says it’s time to change how mental conditions are categorized.

The agency will be redirecting its research focus away from the symptom-based diagnostic criteria of the DSM toward more scientifically verifiable standards, the mental health agency’s director, Thomas Insel, wrote in a recent blog post.

By shifting away from thinking about mental disorders as they are currently classified in the DSM, Insel says researchers will be able to establish a new diagnostic system based on emerging science.

“Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure,” Insel wrote. “Patients with mental disorders deserve better.”

One Step Forward On Mental Health Parity

Excerpt from: psych-appeal.org (click for full article)

 

Yesterday, the United States District Court for the District of Vermont became the first court in the country to interpret the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008—and that decision is favorable to mental health patients. 

In C. M. v. Fletcher Allen Health Care, Inc., plaintiff C. M. challenges her health plan’s administration of mental health benefits. Specifically, she alleges that the Plan violates MHPAEA by: (1) requiring pre-approval for routine mental health services but not for medical-surgical services; (2) conducting concurrent reviews of mental health services but not requiring such reviews for medical-surgical services; and (3) initiating automatic review processes triggered by a fixed number of visits for mental health services but not for medical-surgical services.

The defendant argued that the Interim Final Regulations under MHPEA require that, in addition to demonstrating that mental health services were treated in a different manner than medical-surgical services, patients have to demonstrate that “no clinically appropriate standard of care would permit a difference,” to prove violation of MHPAEA. The Court disagreed, finding that “the Parity Act was promulgated to eliminate impermissible disparity in the benefits afforded for mental health and substance abuse disorders when compared to those afforded medical/surgical conditions. ...  It stands to reason that plan administrators would also bear the burden of establishing, under the Parity Act, why mental health and medical benefits are treated differently based upon divergent clinical standards.”

Mother's quest to find treatment for son highlights mental health system's limitations

Excerpt from: Chicago Tribune (click for full article)

 

When Chris Marciano was 4 years old, he would have a blistering tantrum whenever music came on the radio. By the second grade, his teacher described him as "not with us." At age 11, he was kicked out of school.

"The pediatrician said he was just obnoxious, which wasn't very helpful," said his mother, Mary Gabel, about the first assessment of her then-preschooler. "I knew something wasn't right."

Some 20 years after that assessment, Marciano has accumulated a long list of other adjectives in medical evaluations — excitable, fearful, grandiose, hostile, suicidal — and his mother hasn't stopped searching for the right kind of help.

Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Marciano bounced from emergency room to jail to the streets. When he believes he is Jesus Christ or Tupac Shakur or tells his mother she needs to "watch her back," Gabel said, she double-checks the locks on her house in Chicago's Mount Greenwood neighborhood and alerts her neighbors that her son might come home. She estimates he has been hospitalized 45 times.

Experts urge Medicaid reform to help mentally disabled

Excerpt from: The Oakland Press (click for full article)

 

Expanding Medicaid to cover an estimated 500,000 Michigan residents without medical coverage can provide mental health care for thousands who without treatment could end up homeless, receiving expensive emergency rooms care or in prison, mental health experts say.

“It is sensible public policy to tap federal funds already set aside to expand preventive and life-saving health care under Medicaid,” said Mike Vizena, executive director, Michigan Association of Community Mental Health Boards.

Expansion represents the best single opportunity to improve access to behavioral health-care services for Michigan’s citizens most in need, he added.

Paul Tarr, a legislative liaison for the Department of Community Health, agreed.

“It is my belief Medicaid reform will definitely help people with mental and physical disabilities,” said Tarr.

Cuts to general fund support for mental health and substance use disorder services during the past decade “have resulted in a lack of access, reduction of services and creation of waiting lists for persons without Medicaid,” Vizena said.

Ask Amy: Daughter refuses to be with bipolar brother

Excerpt from: Washington Post (click for full article)

 

Mental illness is both stigmatized and misunderstood. Your son should discuss this with his therapist to explore ways he can be a more active participant in this process. Perhaps this therapist would meet with you and with your daughter (separately or together).

In the meantime, you will have to respect the fact that she is the child’s mother and has to make judgments about who the girl spends time with. Her motivations might be mixed, but you have to accept her choice.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness offers a wealth of information on bipolar illness at nami.org.

Report of Nevada State Mental Hospital Putting Residents on Greyhound Buses and Sending Them to Other States Without Services

Excerpt from: Disability Law (click for full article)

Patti's comment: This makes me physically ill!!

 

A Nevada state mental hospital's practice of discharging psychiatric patients to Greyhound buses and transporting them to cities and towns across the country is under investigation by the independent, nonprofit body that accredits hospitals nationwide. 

In addition, city attorneys in San Francisco and Los Angeles are exploring whether the practice constitutes a form of cross-state "patient dumping," and might be grounds for legal action against Rawson-Neal Psychiatric Hospital and Nevada health authorities. 

The responses follow a report in Sunday's Sacramento Bee that revealed that Rawson-Neal, Nevada's primary psychiatric hospital, has bused more than 1,500 mentally ill patients out of southern Nevada in the last five years, sending at least one person to every state in the continental United States. About one-third of those patients were shipped to California, including more than 200 to Los Angeles County, 36 to San Francisco and 19 to the city of Sacramento, according to a review of Greyhound bus receipts purchased since July 2008 by Nevada's mental health division.