EBD Blog

Right here in my home commonwealth of Virginia last week, Mira Signe, Vicki Hardy-Murrell, John Morgan, and Margaret Nimmo Crowe explained why it is important that government and private organizations attend to and address issues in children’s mental health. By explaining that Virginia has inadequate services and that one in every five children or youths experience mental health problems at some time during their lives, they made the point that that there is a tremendous need for public focus on these issues. This was the kick-off event for the Campaign for Children’s Mental Health.

The Campaign for Children’s Mental Health is a 3-year sustained effort to make mental health services more available and accessible to Virginia children in need. It will strongly endorse Governor-elect McDonnell’s call for system improvements; urge the General Assembly and state and local government to work collaboratively with the administration to address system deficiencies; and conduct a high-profile three-year advocacy and education drive to build public and political support for improved mental health services for children.

Only about one in 20 of Virginia’s children have access to the key services listed in the accompanying box. So, four out of five children who need these services do not have access to them.

No, Virginia, this is not an acceptable way to treat our children. Let’s do better.

• Down load the press release (source of the excerpt quoted here).
• Read coverage in these newspapers:
  • Lynchburg News and Advance—Coalition pushes mental-health care for children
  • Washington Examiner&mdash:Advocates start bid to expand children’s mental health services under bleak budget;
  • Richmond Times Dispatch— Coalition advocate mental-health care for children
  • Washington Post (blog)—New coalition has AG’s support for mental health reforms
• Visit (and support) the Web site of the Campaign for Children’s Mental Health.
• Download pdfs of “Survey of Community Services Board Child and Adolescent Services” and “Review of Community Services Board Child and Adolescent Services“; these are report by James W. Stewart, Inspector General for Virginia’s Mental Health, Mental Retardation & Substance Abuse Services (now called Behavioral Health and Development Services). The list of key services comes from these reports;
• Visit the < href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Campaign-for-Childrens-Mental-Health/183467424796?v=wall" target="_blank">Facebook page;
• Listen to a brief (3+ min) interview with Ms. Crowe from WMRA: Pushing for Children’s Mental Health Reform.

Writing under the headline “Pros and cons of screening teens for depression,” Brendan Borrell examined some of the issues that sometimes roar around surveying youths to identify those who are depressed or at risk for depression. Mr. Borrell’s article, which is one in a series of articles about depression appearing in the Los Angeles Times, addressed concerns such as parental reservations about testing of their children without permission, false positive identification of a high percentage of students, and the absence of adequate treatment for many who need help.

Mr. Borrell established the importance of the issue in his lead:

By the time a teenager graduates high school, about one out of nine of his or her peers has attempted suicide. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, behind car accidents and homicide, and 10% to 12% of teens ponder suicide every day.

Continue reading ‘Screening teens’

Summer in the US finds children and youths out of school and, perhaps, less vulnerable to some of the problems that are associated with the social and academic demands that are part of schooling. As a result, perhaps fewer of the familiar problems illustrated in this poster are apparent during summer.

If summer seems like a relief from such problems, though, that could be an important indicator that those very problems need to be addressed. A few weeks away from school probably will not cure them. Those same difficulties may still be occurring, just less obviously, and they are likely to recur soon.

Individuals or the families of children who experience the kinds of problems noted in the poster should consult the resources available from the US government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. One will not find easy cures there, but by carefully perusing the resources available one can learn what signs to monitor and where to go to get help.

The image is hot. Click it to get to a good starting place.

Even though many schools in the US have closed for the summer or are about to do so, I want to remind folks that this is not a good time to take a break from considering the mental health needs of children and youth. Although they are likely to wax and wane over time, mental health problems don’t take many vacations.

Learn more about US resources for individual children and youths who have emotional and behavioral disorders by surfing the rich resources assembled by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) of the US Department of Health and Human Services. Although some of the materials may be a tad out of date (e.g., prevalence figures have been updated for some disorders such as Autism), there are still plenty of valuable materials available from SAMHSA.

Go there! Compare what you see learn there with what’s available at other trustworthy sites. Learn what to do and from whom help is available.

Adolescents who are at risk for later episodes of major depressive disorders differ from their peers who are not at risk on multiple measures of rapid eye movement (REM) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity during sleep, according to a study by Uma Rao and colleagues that appeared this fall in Neuropsychopharmacology . Early depressive episodes that occur during adolescence are strongly associated with other later problems in other areas such as interpersonal relationships, pregnancy, educational attainment, employment, and suicidal behavior; finding predictors of later problems is important for primary and secondary prevention.

Rao and colleagues compared youths at risk for major depressive disorder with peers using electroencephalographic (EEG) and HPA measures. They then followed the youths for 5 years and correlated their EEG and HPA measures with the chances of later episodes of depression. Here’s the abstract:
Continue reading ‘Sleep predictors of later depression’

Later this month Ronald Leaf and Mitch Taubman of Autism Partnership will present a workshop in the Los Angeles area, and it is likely to be of interest and benefit to some readers of EBD Blog. The session. entitled “It Has To Be Said! ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore,’” promises to discuss contemporary topics such as causes, alternative treatments, inclusion, effectiveness, and more. It’s slated for 8:30 AM -2:30 PM 26 February 2009 in Seal Beach (CA, US). Here’s a special plus: Unlike many workshops, this one will not costs $100s—It’s only $90 per person ($75 for parents)!

I wonder what they’re mad about. Could it be the lunchmeat that is served as fine food in the Autism world? I hope someone who attends will report back to me by dropping a comment.

Download an announcement (PDF) of the workshop.

The University of Pennsylvania Collaborative on Community Integration has published its latest newsletter. To view this newsletter in fully formated form, click here. You can also find this issue and previous ones in the newsletter archive on the UPenn Collaborative Web site.

Continue reading ‘UPenn newsletter June 08′

Over on Teachers At Risk (great title!), Elona Hartjes has a post about her reaction to a popular press discussion about the prevalence of mental illness among school children.

Twenty percent of kids sitting in classrooms today are mentally ill. That’s shocking. What’s even more shocking is that only 1/5 of that twenty percent are getting treatment.

I could hardly believe my ears tonight when I heard that statistic on TVO’s The Agenda with Steve Paikin. Next week, May 3 – May 10, 2008 , is Children’s Mental Health Week and I suppose that’s why the program, “Kids aren’t right” aired tonight.

Continue reading ‘Prevalence of EBD’

The paper mail included a copy of Focal Point, the periodical from the Research and Training Center (RTC) on Family Support and Children’s Mental Health at Portland (OR, US) State University. As usual, it includes many worthwhile articles. It reminded me that I should reminder readers of EBD Blog about the RTC.

Continue reading ‘PDX RTC’

The US National Institute of Mental Health has maintained a page about Autism for many years. It recently reviewed that page and the updated version is on-line now. Here is an outline of the contents of the page.

Autism Spectrum Disorders (Pervasive Developmental Disorders)

• Introduction
• What Are the Autism Spectrum Disorders?
• The Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Treatment Options
• Adults with an Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Research into Causes and Treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Addendum (February 2007)
• References

Continue reading ‘NIMH Autism publication’

Today is the official launch of the Consortium to Prevent School Violence (CPSV). The consortium will provide many resources including fact sheets, research summaries, training resources, and more.

The Consortium to Prevent School Violence (CPSV) seeks to promote the effective implementation of school violence prevention practices that are:

Based in high-quality scientific research

Proven to prevent and reduce school violence

Following the school shootings of Fall 2006, a group of 20 researchers and practitioners in the field of school violence prevention collaborated on the creation of a position statement on the school shootings. In the process, it became apparent that an alliance of researchers and practitioners in school violence prevention to further the common goal of reducing school violence would be highly valuable.

The Consortium is primarily a volunteer effort.

Visit CPSV on the Web. Snag a copy of CPSV press release about the launch.

“Are we too quick to medicate children?” Melissa Healy asks this question in the headline of an article in the Los Angeles Times. She also weaves the related question—”Are we able to discriminate between normal and atypical behavior?”—into her article.

These are generally sensible questions. They reflect issues of real concern in the scientific community. But, when the headline asks whether we presrcibe medications too quickly, one can guess the answer pretty readily. Unless I’m way off base, would many readers expect the answer to be “no?”

Indeed, the article is nearly chockfull of critical concern about diagnoses, labeling, and treatment. Ms. Healy cites research results (without revealing some of the sources) and quotes at least a half dozen experts. Some of these experts would probably be consider advocates by some of the other experts.

As is de rigeur in contemporary journalism, Ms. Healy leads (and closes) with a case example. She tells the story of a 38-year-old mother who takes her 11-year-old daughter to a psychiatrist, because the girl’s “behavior and performance in school were exemplary, but an ill-tempered outburst had gotten the preteen kicked out of a Girl Scout troop she had joined at age 5. The girl was confused and heartbroken over her ejection.”

Katie’s maternal instincts tell her she must protect her child. But from what, she asks — a disease that threatens health, happiness and future? A bogus label applied to an admittedly challenging kid? Or drugs with potentially harmful and little-studied side effects?

And protect her exactly how — by resisting or by medicating?

In general, this is not a dispassionate examination of the question under which Ms. Healy’s article appears. I say this not because I disagree with her slant, but because the treatment is sensational and poorly informed. Had she gone more deeply into the topic, she would have learned about effective behavioral treatments that provide viable alternatives to medicaiton for many child behavior problems. Instead, she stuck with the hidden-mysteries view of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders of children.

Link to Ms. Healy’s article.