Parents who are responsibly trying to raise children who have mental, emotional, or behavioral disorders search for appropriate and effective treatments, services, and supports to help their child. Sometimes, this search forces parents who have exhausted all their own financial resources, including health insurance benefits, and are not eligible for Medicaid, to transfer custody of their children to state authorities in order to access public funds to pay for necessary mental health care, services and supports. This issue has been eloquently documented by Lee Gutkind in his book Stuck In Time which chronicles the lives of three Pennsylvania youths with serious emotional disturbances. Current state policies on the issue have been further documented by a study completed by the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in 1999.
This practice is the consequence of several factors. Inadequate funding of mental health services and support for children and their families is a major reason families turn to the child welfare system for help. Lack of incentives to develop effective community-based systems of care to help families keep their children with emotional, behavioral, or mental disorders at home, in school, safe, and out of trouble also contributes to the problem. Insufficient mental health benefits in private and public insurance plans cause families to exhaust benefits before the mental health needs of their child are fully addressed. This is especially true when the child’s condition is chronic and intensive intervention is periodically required.
