Mental health/Department of Juvenile Justice loophole

klmno

Active Member
I think I have found the black hole in this issue. I have researched a lot about the laws and what these various agencies can and cannot do in our state. It appears that when the funding was cut so much from state phosps a little was added to dept of corrections and Department of Juvenile Justice. And, people had been making issue over so many kids being sent to Department of Juvenile Justice that efforts to get help while a kid is on probation (to prevent commitment to state Department of Juvenile Justice) were increased. They tried to use "model programs" which means mst, so that's basicly all a kid/family can get while on probation. There's still a pretty high recidivism rate, although that helped a little. Then, the kid gets sent to state Department of Juvenile Justice and there is some mental health available there now. But- here's the loophole- the kid gets out on parole at some point and the funding is there for what they are calling mental health treatment but it's all for conduct disorder. Now don't get me wrong- obviously there are behavioral issues to contend with. But, nothing is there to deal with the other, underlying issues that are there with so many of these kids, especially since they are all going to Department of Juvenile Justice now that they are not sending kids to phosps and rarely send them to Residential Treatment Center (RTC). The Department of Juvenile Justice facility is not as bad as I thought- apparently the funding increase in that respect has helped. But, the parole officers and local agencies that these kids get sent to are clueless and are not picking up the slack. They are spending enormous amounts of money barking up the wrong tree. I found public comments and comments from agencies that offer wrap around services and so forth to the general assembly trying to tell them that this is a problem- needing mental health treatment for issues other than conduct disorder and needing orders that benefit families more than causing hardships. At least I know it's not just me. Anyway, the general assembly has ordered numerous "task forces" over the past few years to look into this problem.

But, come on, how much money and manpower and time needs to be spent on this? Why order task force after task force? It appears to me that the people in the general assmebly know that it boils down to a debate between those who just want to incarcerate offenders and those who believe they should get mental health treatment and the task forces keep getting ordered to avoid them having to take a position on it.

I am left looking at this like parents must have felt years ago, before wrightslaw, when there was nothing requiring the sd to do certain things and the parent and child had no rights. The sd could say or do whatever- even if it seemed common sense that it was unreasonable or not in the best interest of the child. So, I'm trying to get a good mindset to finish this letter to difficult child's PO and to get him to see that ordering us to do a bunch of stuff if he doesn't get on board with the profs or doesn't care what they say is only going to make things worse. What's rubbing me the wrong way with the local people (who will be in control once difficult child is released ) is that they completely ignore recommendations from mental health profs and they only want to believe stuff that comes from other local agencies- but the people in our local agencies are..well....ignorant. The PO already told me that he might not go by what Department of Juvenile Justice recommends for difficult child- he might order difficult child to get evaluation'd by our local agency (GAG!) and order whatever they recommend. To me that seems outrageous. He said not to worry- they would only need to see difficult child a few hours to do their evaluation. Well, darn- the six previous psychiatrists and the year in Department of Juvenile Justice with a psychiatrist and therapist were just blowing smoke but a few hours with a person in our local agency will dictate everything? And mind you- the local agency deals with local funding just like our local Department of Juvenile Justice- which amounts to a sd throwing out everything except what their sd psychiatric comes up with.

Are there any states that have gotten further in this area? I swear, I'd move in a minute if I could find a job and if it's not a state where it gets 10 below zero for over a month every year. LOL!
 
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