EBD Blog

The US Congress will hold a briefing on the transition to adulthood for youth with serious emotional illness. This is an excellent opportunity for people in the US who are concerned about children and youths with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders and their families to reinforce public policies that are aimed at bringing some much-needed services to individuals with EBD who are making the transition for adolescence to adulthood.

Here’s an announcement from the Day Al-Mohamed, of the Public Interest Government Relations Office at the American Psychological Association:

A Congressional Briefing on

TRANSITION YOUTH WITH SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS (SMI)

Please Mark Your Calendars!!!

Friday, July 25, 2008, at 10am
(Capitol H-137)

Who: Rep. Pete Stark, Sen. Gordon Smith, & Sen. Chris Dodd

What: Congressional Briefing on Transition Youth with SMI

When: 10 am this Friday, July 25

Where: H-137 of the Capitol Building

Why: Learn about and support an issue of extreme importance

More than three million youth in the United States with serious mental illness are transitioning into adulthood, and everyday society fails them, placing a tremendous health and financial burden on countless families. The rate of SMI is higher in the 18-25 age group than in any other. More than 60% of these young people with SMI don’t complete high school, leaving them uneducated, unemployed, and without the essential skills for independent living.

Young adults with SMI are far less likely to receive necessary treatment than any other age cohort. Transition youth with SMI encounter numerous obstacles as they transition from school and child welfare systems to their adult lives. Lack of appropriate services can result in substantial direct and indirect costs. The implications of such failure to provide these much needed services could have an adverse impact on the youths, their families, and other institutions unprepared and ill-equipped to assist this important population.

Youth of color with SMI experience additional obstacles, including a greater burden from mental illness than do Americans of European descent. Within the same diagnosis, minorities report more symptoms and experience more persistent disorders. Compared to Americans of European descent, racial and ethnic minorities have less access to mental health services, are less likely to receive needed services, and are more likely to receive poor quality of care.

This is a critical issue which Congress has not yet addressed. However, years of dedicated effort have finally produced The Healthy Transition Act of 2008, which is currently before Congress.

PLEASE COME OUT AND SUPPORT THIS VITAL LEGISLATION

The Act (1) Establishes planning grants for states to develop statewide coordination plans to assist adolescents and young adults with a serious mental health disorder; (2) Establishes a grant program to help states implement the plan they have created under the planning grants or to states that have an equivalent plan approved by SAMHSA; (3) Establishes a committee of federal partners that will coordinate service programs at the federal level and provide technical assistance to states.

For more information, please contact Day Al-Mohamed, J.D. at 202.336.6061 or dwilliamsal-mohamed @ apa.org

Please see the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) page where you can express support of this legislation.