It is easier to get a gun than obtain psychiatric services

As a mother and educational advocate I watch children and adults as they suffer and struggle with undiagnosed, misdiagnosed, improperly treated psychiatric illnesses and developmental disorders. I see children devastated by our public schools that have not built the capacity to offer appropriate special education programs and services…and at this juncture will never in our lifetime educate these children to be maximally productive citizens and tax payers due to the state of special education, public education and non-existent mental health services or long term inpatient psychiatric care.

I have desperate parents searching fruitlessly for pediatric psychiatrists, psychologists, and community services. I am currently advocating on behalf of a 14 year old who has been living in Children’s Village since early September and will be dumped into Maxey Boys Training Center, Turning Point or Star Commonwealth and committed to the MI Department of Human (yeah, right) Services and simply because he was destroyed by two school districts and did not receive the treatment he has needed for a Reactive-Attachment Disorder, ADHD and Learning Disabilities, and in MI there is NOT ONE long term psychiatric hospital.

This child that never asked to be born will be dumped into a juvenile detention center and have no chance at receiving the psychiatric, psychological, psychosocial and special education that he needs. He is spending Christmas all alone and without his mother because a callous hearing officer and judge in the Oakland County Juvenile Court has nowhere in Michigan to treat his complex psychiatric and psychosocial needs…and will not consider an out-of-state residential placement. Nope.

Let’s through him away. Shame on everyone. I am sick and tired of watching children destroyed in MI and across the U.S. because adults can’t unite in a bipartisan effort to address the egregious shortage of pediatric psychiatrists and lack of access to psychiatric care, mental health services and psychiatric day and residential treatment facilities. Parents are losing homes and going bankrupt trying to provide the medical care and help that their children need. And don’t get me started on the lack of federal funding to research children with the early onset of psychiatric illness. That will have to wait for another post. It is easier to get a gun that to get a child the necessary psychiatric, mental health and special education necessary to turn every child into a maximally productive adult.