Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 3, 1990 TAG: 9005030520
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KIM SUNDERLAND NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
May is Mental Health Month, and one of the focuses of the National Mental Health Association and its local chapters this year is children.
In the United States, an estimated 9 million children suffer from mental and emotional problems. Almost 80 percent of them will go without proper treatment, the association says.
Statewide, the numbers are just as alarming.
According to the "Invisible Children's Report," conducted last year by the Mental Health Association of Virginia, children with emotional troubles number in the thousands.
Virginia has some 174,500 children who are at risk or who exhibit mild to severe emotional problems, said Lacey Gordon Cundiff, executive director of the Montgomery County Mental Health Association.
More than 74,000 children are considered seriously emotionally disturbed - their behavior and emotional development is significantly different from that of most children their own age, Cundiff said.
"It's shocking to think this many children are in trouble."
The most common problems for children are emotional disturbances, poor academic performance, delinquency, delayed development, physical health problems, a disorganized family structure or separation from family.
Many mental health specialists believe a related problem is sending children away from home for the treatment of these difficulties. It's been called a short-term solution that places them "out of sight and out of mind" - in other words, the children become invisible.
This loss of a sense of being connected with family and community increases the likelihood that the children will become mentally ill adults.
Few alternatives exist, either in the state or in the country, for seriously emotionally disturbed children except those that are restrictive - such as psychiatric hospitals, residential treatment centers and correctional institutions.
Because of this, many parents live with their troubled children at home without community services. Others give up custody of their children so they can receive services or send them away from home because there are no adequate services locally.
None of these options is acceptable, according to the national association. "Forcing strained families to care for their seriously emotionally disturbed children at home, without support services and community resources, creates a situation that is destined for failure."
"Creating a community-based support system for the children and the parents is a prevention measure," explained Cundiff. "If we help and care for our children, then there are possibilities there will be fewer mentally ill adults."
Community-based services are said to return about 76 percent of children served to their homes and communities. And levels of functioning also increase, according to the Virginia report.
The report also emphasized that by bringing treatment to local communities, the state's cost per child is reduced.
To send one child out of state for treatment costs about $53,200 in state funds annually.
Children treated in a local operation would cost only $18,000 each in state funding, said Cundiff.
One program designed to keep children with mental and emotional difficulties at home or in their community is Youth Services.
A program of the New River Valley Community Services Board, Youth Services offers many ways to help children including individual, family and group therapy, psychological evaluations, school and summer programs, phone friend and specialized foster care.
Specialized foster care, developed in coordination with various social services agencies, provides an alternative to hospitalization by enabling the child to live temporarily with specially trained foster parents.
During this time the child also works with their natural family in order to return home.
Besides working with the families, Youth Services also works with various special education departments in the schools and the RAFT Community Crisis Center in order to give children as much local care as possible.
Other programs in the county and throughout the valley are also designed to help children.
One that encourages people to become child specialists is the Child Study Center at the psychology department at Virginia Tech.
At the center, some of the things studied are children's mental health problems. Parenting problems are also researched, said Jack Finney, director of the center.
"Some parents don't learn how to be good parents," Finney said, adding that parents, for example, stumble over decisions and don't set appropriate limits for children to live by.
Parents can become more involved with their children by seeking advice, getting educated or even getting involved in direct therapy since "firm, consistent and loving rules are the best for children to perform in," Finney said.
Parents are not bred with all the answers.
The Child Study Center, begun in 1988, is a service and research program for graduate students in clinical psychology interested in becoming child specialists.
Finney said interest in the field is rising because people are more aware of the range of children's problems and how to care for them.
These programs and others are preventive measures against adult mental illnesses. They are efforts working to close the gap on the 15 percent of school age children who exhibit or are at risk of incurring a mental problem.
"And there is a very large stigma attached to mental illness," Cundiff said. "Only one in five affected by it will even seek treatment."
To help dispel that stigma, the National Mental Health Association held a national conference on mental health services relating to children. The Invisible Children Conference brought many mental health, educational and social services professionals together to discuss problems faced by children and adolescents, especially those who are severely disturbed.
The Invisible Children Project grew out of that conference and is part of this year's effort to identify the severely disturbed children in each state who are sent out of their communities and states for treatment.
The project will try to find out how many kids are placed in facilities out of state or more than 100 miles from home; how many are placed in detention or adult psychiatric centers; and what services must be provided to bring them back home, to maintain them there and prevent more from being separated from their families.
"I believe that the majority of Americans are simply unaware of the terrible misery that such children and their families are forced to bear," said L. Patt Franciosi, president for the national association. "We have failed to implement decades-old knowledge on how to most effectively treat children's problems."
The proposed Virginia Comprehensive State Plan for 1990-1996 wants to expand services that address the many needs of various communities. Children's services are one of the identified needs.
"It's important to care for our children in the family and in the community," Finney said. "There is a potential for a payoff later on."
by CNB