Mental Health News
Families worry mental health cuts will send kids spiraling
A week before Christmas, Judy Powelson was awaiting her son’s first visit home in nine months with a mix of excitement and trepidation.
Earlier in the year, the 17-year-old’s mental illness had spiraled out of control to the point that he attacked her, kicked a teacher in the groin and was hospitalized for psychiatric treatment. But since he entered residential treatment funded in part by the state, she’d seen him go through marked improvements — getting a 3.11 GPA and being voted MVP in soccer.
Now Powelson’s son, identified in court papers as T.G., is one of 20,000 students across California whose mental health services may be in jeopardy in the new year because of a line-item veto by the governor. In October, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger slashed $133 million in funding for what are known as AB 3632 services, a 25-year-old program that requires state and local education and mental health agencies to jointly provide education-related mental health services.
Families with children who suffer from mental illnesses ranging from depression to schizophrenia and who depend on these services have been thrown into chaos, parents and advocates say. Several counties, including Orange and Alameda, have sent out notices indicating that the services will be discontinued in January, attorneys representing the parents said.
“If my son loses this treatment, I will lose my son,” Powelson said, her voice quivering. “I will lose him to mental illness, I will lose him to the criminal justice system, to drug abuse, to suicide.”
She has filed a declaration about her son’s situation as part of a federal class-action lawsuit seeking to block cutbacks to or discontinuation of the services. This month, a federal judge in Los Angeles heard arguments from attorneys representing the families and various state and local agencies but said he would wait until the new year before considering whether to issue an injunction.
U.S. District Judge George Wu said it wasn’t immediately clear what would happen come Jan. 14, when a temporary order restoring the funding for the services is due to expire. He said he also wanted to wait for the outcome of a separate state court case in Sacramento challenging the governor’s veto, which is scheduled to be heard in early January.
“I understand that the state agencies are pointing the finger and saying, ‘It’s your problem, it’s your problem, it’s your problem,’ ” Wu said at the hearing, adding that each agency was “waiting for somebody to blink.” But he said it wasn’t the right time for him to issue an order because “it’s a complicated situation…. Bad things have not happened, but may happen in the future based on how these agencies act.”
Attorneys representing various state and county agencies said they were trying to determine where the funds would come from, not dodging their responsibilities. They also said the four named plaintiffs in the case were currently receiving the necessary treatment and had not been notified that it would be taken away.
“They’re here prematurely,” said Supervising Deputy Atty. Gen. Jennifer M. Kim, representing the governor’s office and the California Department of Mental Health.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs contended that a statewide court order was immediately necessary because vulnerable children were at risk of being harmed while the case was being litigated.
“Every day, a new county is saying they can’t provide the services,” said Laura Faer, an attorney for Public Counsel, which filed the class-action lawsuit along with Disability Rights California and the law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher.
David Campos, whose son is the lead plaintiff, said he felt his child was being left behind while government agencies passed the blame.
“Everybody’s waiting for somebody else to take the first step,” said Campos, whose son, identified as A.C. in court papers, has been receiving counseling since kindergarten. Campos and his wife, Gail, have been trying to get help for their son ever since they adopted him at age 4 knowing he suffered the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome and had been neglected and abused.
This summer, their son twice attempted suicide — swallowing half a bottle of Tylenol and trying to hang himself — and landed in juvenile hall. Through AB 3632 funding, he is receiving residential treatment for oppositional defiant disorder and attention deficit hyperactive disorder in Texas.
“When I heard the news [of the cut], I felt like I had been punched in the stomach,” Gail Campos wrote in a declaration submitted with the court. “My son so desperately needs these services to get better, and I don’t want him to end up in the criminal system or homeless.”
Powelson said the treatment for her son, who has been diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder and intermittent explosive disorder, had been like the “light at the end of the tunnel” for her family.
“The bad days before turned into bad weeks and bad months. My husband used to say it was like a piano falling from a tall building,” she said. “Now, in treatment, he has a safe place to fall.”
Mental health beds set to move
It has been a process almost a dozen years in the making, but come January, 31 regional, specialized beds with the Northeast Mental Health Centre will be transferred from North Bay to the former Sudbury Algoma Hospital.
Thirty-one patients to fill those spots will move Jan. 14 to newly renovated quarters at the hospital, set in a park-like setting on Kirkwood Drive.
The move has not come without controversy, with some North Bay business leaders and union members complaining about the patient moves and associated job transfers.
But the woman in charge of organizing the transfer believes it will be a good one in the long run for the 31 patients involved.
Karen Bennett is vice-president of clinical programs with the North East Mental Health Centre, an agency that didn’t exist when the Health Services Restructuring Commission recommended the beds be moved from North Bay to Sudbury in 1998.
Until then, those beds were located in one of 10 provincially run psychiatric hospitals in the province. The commission transferred care of acute mental health services to hospitals and created the North East Mental Health Centre to oversee the operation of those 31 regional beds.
The 31 beds will be transferred to the Kirkwood building, which is owned by the North East Mental Health Centre. Sudbury Regional Hospital rents space from the mental health centre for some acute mental health beds it operates at Kirkwood.
The reorganization of acute mental health services to Sudbury and North Bay hospitals, and of regional beds to North East Mental Health Centre, has been a long time coming and there have been some hard feelings along the way.
While change is difficult for most people to accept, Bennett firmly believes the 31 patients currently in the 31 regional beds will receive even better care in their new quarters.
The 31 patients will be divided into two streams — 15 of them into specialized dementia care and 16 in the adult transitional program.
The goal of professionals working in both units is to help people get well so they can return to live at home, in long-term care or in other arrangements in their home communities.