January
28, 2010
For
Immediate Release
CONTACT:
Christine Sinatra, Communications Director: (512) 473-2274
Juvenile Corrections System Acts as Mental Health
Provider of Last Resort for Many Texas Families
Panelists at Thursday Capitol Summit on
Mental Health and Juvenile Justice will explore the issue
AUSTIN
– A Texas parent who resorted to turning her mentally ill son over to the Texas
Youth Commission so he could get treatment and the mother of a Texas child with
disabilities, incarcerated from ages 10-15, for a misdemeanor are among the
families whose stories will be shared at a special Texas Summit on Mental
Health and Juvenile Justice Thursday. Family members will be joined by national
policy experts, advocates for children and state leaders and their staff for a
Capitol discussion about the connection between shortages of children’s mental
health services and incidences of juvenile delinquency in Texas.
"Providing
more children and youth with reliable access to mental health care, not only
can prevent crime in Texas, it also gives more of our kids the chance to be
successful,” said Eileen Garcia, executive director of Texans Care for
Children, the nonprofit child advocacy organization hosting the summit. "By
connecting youth who need treatment to community-based services, we can prevent
many kids from acting out in the first place – and we can reverse a trend that
now has more kids in Texas than any other state growing up to enter prison,
instead of the workforce.”
The Summit, whose partners include
Methodist Healthcare Ministries and Texas Mental Health Juvenile Justice Action
Network, involves first-hand family stories and policy discussions about:
- The juvenile
justice system acts as the de facto mental health delivery system for Texas,
and several experts believe this trend is on the rise. Fewer than
one in five Texas children diagnosed with a mental illness, serious emotional
disturbance, or other condition that puts them at risk of being removed from
their home or school actually receives mental health treatment. More than 40 percent of youth involved with
the state’s juvenile probation system are mentally ill. In the Texas Youth
Commission, a third of all inmates have a serious
mental health problem, and not all receive treatment. For example, fewer than
half of TYC youth in need of substance abuse treatment receive it.
- Texas ranks
49th in the country in per capita spending on mental health treatment and suffers shortages of mental health
providers in two-thirds of its counties.
Nationwide, mental health experts say the juvenile justice system is seeing its
worst crisis in decades, as few health plans offer coverage for mental health services
for children, states cut back on funding for community-based mental health
programs due to budget shortfalls, and the number of specialists able to
provide mental health services to youth declines.
"All these factors are converging to suggest
Texas should act right now to meet mental health challenges head-on at the time
when interventions often matter most – early in life,” Garcia said. "We are
pleased that the 81st Texas Legislature took steps to close loopholes that
prevented some juveniles from getting mental health services they need. The
next step must be ensuring services for all
youth with mental illnesses, including those in the juvenile justice system
today and those we can prevent from entering it in the first place.”
Texans Care
for Children
is a statewide child advocacy organization that focuses on improving conditions
for Texas children and youth through policy changes. Based in Austin, the
organization does research, policy analysis and grassroots outreach with the
aim of improving the overall wellbeing of Texas children. Texans Care for
Children serves as a voice for children, a source on children and a network for
people who put children first.
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