It’s no longer a secret that there’s a mental health crisis among U.S. children and adolescents. That’s why more and more states, local governments, and federal agencies are taking a more proactive approach to curb the rise of mental health-related issues among young people.
Illinois is right at the forefront of this fight.
Recently, Gov. JB Pritzker announced the launch of the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative, created to bolster mental and behavioral health services for adolescents and children in Illinois. The initiative would bring together six key state agencies to develop a concerted response to increasing transparency and support for kids struggling with mental health-related issues.
Following the announcement by Gov. JB Pritzker, the departments of Juvenile Justice, Healthcare and Family Services, Public Health, Children and Family Services, Human Services, and the State Board of Education will collaborate as a working group. The primary goal of this coordinated effort is, of course, to better support children and adolescents in need of behavioral and mental health services across the Land of Lincoln.
Dr. Dana Weiner, a University of Chicago’s Chapin Hall child welfare expert, will take over the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative helm. She’s well-known for teaching about slavery, the development of race in the U.S., and the intersection of politics with activism, gender history, and women’s issues.
The initiative director will work closely with the governor’s office members to craft an actionable blueprint by the close of the year. They will also create the roadmap the state will follow to respond to mental and behavioral health crises among children and teens in Illinois.
When being unveiled as the director of the new working group, Weiner noted that our current mental health system is challenging to navigate and doesn’t provide parents with viable and transparent solutions to the issues they face. According to Dr. Weiner, the resulting uncertainty can pose a significant threat to the healthy development of kids and the stability and integrity of Illinoisan families.
Parents, teachers, and other stakeholders hope to curb youth behavioral and mental health crises with the initiative already in full gear. In the meantime, private equity groups are meeting the new demand for more child therapy services, like the privately funded Geode Health group, which has already opened a location in Westmont and plans to open ten more sites by the end of the year.
Children’s mental health crisis hits too close home
With confusion surrounding children’s cognitive and behavioral health problems, many families in Illinois are in limbo. Take Michelle Trager, a mom of four. She doesn’t know what to do with her 16-year-old eldest son, who has been in and out of the state juvenile system as he struggles with mental health-related issues.
Adopted at 14 months, the teenager has battled several behavioral and emotional problems as he aged, often affecting his everyday life. Trager has been seeking recommendations and interventions from behavioral and mental health professionals for the past decade to no avail.
His behavior and mental health-related issues were so disruptive and rampant that he deemed dangerous to himself and others around him. In addition, a thorough behavioral assessment showed that he was at an increased risk of alcohol addiction due to his background of early childhood trauma.
Unfortunately, no residential treatment facility could accept Trager’s son, and he should seek in-patient rehabilitation. At 14, Trager’s son served a 331-day stint in county detention, where he harmed himself multiple times and had to seek E.R. help.
Eventually, he transferred to the Department of Juvenile Justice, where they recognized that he required psychiatric treatment instead of being incarcerated. That’s where the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative will come into play.
The six-agency initiative is to work through a multi-step process to evaluate and review if kids (like Trager’s son) and their families will access mental health services in their schools, community, or residential programs. Constituent agencies will also determine the resource allocations required within current programs, and review barriers to inter-agency coordination, eligibility requirements for various levels of care, and best practices from multiple other systems that serve children nationwide.
Conclusion
Figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that E.D. visits due to mental health-related issues jumped between March and October 2020. Well over 100k students with disabilities in Illinois could access psychological, social, and counseling services.
Accordingly, the multi-agency initiative launched by Gov. JB Pritzker will partner with several community-based organizations to establish and support the new 988 federal mental health crisis line. In addition to that, the DHS will get $50 million in more federal funding for measures that would address behavioral, trauma, and mental health.