SC's Mental Health Care Crisis Lands Foster Kids On Air Mattresses In Offices
COLOMBIA - After years of caring primarily for babies and toddlers, Greenville registered nurse Jennifer Theis and her husband Benjamin knew some foster children, especially teenagers, were being forced to sleep in Department of Human Services offices.
When they agreed to place one of these teenagers in an emergency shelter about two years ago, they realized how difficult it could be.
According to Jennifer Theis, a 15-year-old girl admitted to the Theis home over the weekend told them she sat in the bedroom for hours while her handler frantically tried to get her to stay. In the end, the girl fell asleep in the chair, only to wake up after her traumatic story was told over and over on the phone and the families said they couldn't pick her up.
Jennifer Theis quickly learned more.
Many offices do not have beds and therefore air mattresses are used. At the office, he was told that "more than six" children were sleeping on mattresses in the conference room. Other staff at the department said they just wanted a table where the children could eat during the long wait.
What Tice heard was the beginning of many children forced to sleep in public institutions or sent to various foster homes in South Carolina due to a severe shortage of foster homes. temporary.
As The Post and Courier reported this week, the problem of children sleeping in public institutions began to emerge in earnest around the time Tice learned more about it, in late 2021 and early 2022. Met. from this year.
In March, 16 children spent 49 nights in the departments. In May, just over 50 children spent 144 nights in the departments. According to a report by the Independent Observers, 62 children spent 251 nights in offices in June. Foster children spent 132 nights in offices in July, a significant decrease from the previous month, said Emily Medere, deputy director of the state's child protective services. Earlier this year, the state said it needed 2,000 more nursing homes to meet demand.
"As a mother, I could not bear the thought of a child who had already gone through the traumatic experience of being separated from his biological family ... and left only to sleep on an air mattress," Thais said said. "I can only imagine that they then wonder: "Who is thinking of me?" "
Report indicates mental crisis
The lack of foster care and, as a result, children sleeping in offices is a problem across the country, not just in South Carolina, and this problem has been growing for many years.
According to Serita Cox, co-founder and CEO of iFoster, a nationwide group that supports foster families, about half of the states in the US only have half of the required foster families.
In North Carolina, the number of licensed nursing homes has dropped from about 7,000 to 5,500 since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Gail Osborne, CEO of Foster, which has urged counties and community organizations to buy land to accommodate children waiting at home. North Carolina Family Alliance, Post and Courier reports.
Experts and government officials agree that it was the pandemic that turned the system upside down.
"When schools closed, foster parents suddenly found themselves homeschooling their unregistered foster children," Cox said. “You can't just call a nanny. To care for an adopted child, you need the approval of another foster parent who cares for the children, just so you can go on a date.
Burnout has drastically reduced the number of foster parents, and because the pandemic has also made it difficult to hire, their positions have often been left vacant.
"We're constantly following each other and trying to make these foster families work," said Cindy Bogan-Baber, president of the Berkeley County Foster Parents Association. It is currently home to three children.
At the same time, among the children in the care of the department, there are more and more adolescents with psychological and behavioral problems who require intensive care, which many foster families cannot provide. These are also the children who most often end up on the air mattress in the conference room.
Of the 109 children who spent the night in the office from April to June this year, 79% had a mental health diagnosis, 31% had a history of suicidal thoughts and 15% had substance abuse problems, according to an Observer report.
The report concludes that the main reason for the recent instability in the care system is the lack of mental health care for children in South Carolina.
"Finding a child psychiatrist is like finding a leprechaun," said a spokesperson for the Observers division. According to the report, South Carolina ranks lowest in the nation for the number of young people diagnosed with major depression who do not receive treatment.
The pandemic has accelerated a downward trend in the mental health of young people who have plunged headlong into the Palmetto State treatment vacuum.
The state lacks mental health professionals, especially in rural areas. South Carolina has only one 24-hour crisis stabilization unit, but it is open only to adults, and the state has placed a moratorium on the development of new mental health services. Rehabilitation since 2015, the report says.
State leaders have said improving mental health services is a top priority, and State 988's new critical line is showing promising results.
But the desperation of parents has grown to such an extent that they increasingly refuse to take their children to foster families after hospitalization due to a mental health crisis, because they are unable to care for them, leaving them in the care of the department. says in the report.
"Some of these parents are ready to make charges of child neglect because they urgently need help for their child," the report said.
Children with acute mental disorders are very difficult to place in foster families and are more likely to move from one home to another, resulting in a real crisis.
Unfortunately, observers have found that the crisis is self-exacerbating: the longer children are away from stable families, the more their mental health and behavior deteriorate, making it even harder for them to be accommodated.
"While DSS leadership has been mobilizing staff for months in a concerted effort to contain the crisis, a severe lack of services and family support is fundamentally impeding progress," the report said.
The department is looking for solutions
Michael Leach, director of the department of human services, told the Post and Courier this month that he is aware of the problems and the department is doing its best to address them.
The department offers families with the most difficult children 24/7 crisis support, additional training and a behavior specialist. began offering day services in the Midlands; Officials said the company has resumed recruiting foster parents directly and has contracted with an outside organization to ensure the children remain in a close-knit family.
The department began building its youth mental health support system to get to the bottom of the problem, he said.
"I think it will be a while before we can build all of that before we see a clear effect," assistant manager Medere said.
Observers urged the agency to move forward. It must pay full-time foster parents, redouble its already successful efforts to place adopted children with family members, and work with law enforcement to reduce unnecessary displacement of children. He is calling on the rest of the state government to act quickly to improve the state's mental health system.
In May, Gov. Henry McMaster signed a bill that would allow the department to pay adoptive parents the same compensation as foster families. According to iFoster's Cox, making it easier for loved ones to care for their children could play a crucial role in combating the crisis.
But Jennifer Theis didn't want to wait. In March 2022, she and her husband decided to do something.
With support from the government's business community and the department, they began to renovate the department's offices, adding sofas, rocking chairs, desks, TVs, Nintendo Switch, books and real beds.
"They range from a simple air mattress in a small room to an entire room that doesn't even look like an office," she said.
They have renovated eight district offices, all in the state, but they have an aggressive plan to expand to the rest of the state. But it's a problem, Thais said, and she's even sad it needs to be addressed.
"If we ever get to the point where these rooms aren't used at night, thank God," she said.
Tidak ada komentar untuk "SC's Mental Health Care Crisis Lands Foster Kids On Air Mattresses In Offices"
Posting Komentar