What If Mental Health Services For Foster Youth Were Automatic?
As an author and advocate for children in the foster care system, I am often asked what I would change about the system. I have a list, but a wise social worker once asked me if the change would benefit myself, or someone else. “Red tape does not appear out of thin air,” I was reminded. With my list of complaints aside, I saw an opportunity to do the right thing – for everyone.
Five years after adopting my son from the U.S. foster care system, I wish upon all the stars in creation that he would have received some form of trauma therapy immediately upon separation from his biological family. Beyond this, I wish all incoming youth would receive an automatic psychological evaluation.
Yes, I said “automatic,” as in…
Necessary mental health services begin on day one.
It breaks my heart that my son spent multiple years as a foster youth with not one foster family being prompted to take him to the therapies he badly needed. As it was, and is, initiating a mental health care protocol is optional – and often a complicated burden on the families that initiate it.
Due to the missed opportunity, my son missed being diagnosed with autism and missed being able to receive the anxiety meds he needed to help him cope with his severe PTSD.
In all of this time, the foster parents struggled to manage and he was transferred out multiple times, including overnight stays at the welfare office because they ran out of places for him to go. His behaviors were quite difficult to understand and he wasn’t receiving the necessary special education services at school. The gap in skill deficits widened instead of closing.
In my opinion, this is the exact opposite of what is supposed to be happening to children in care!
Do You Love Him? Or Hate Him? Secondary Trauma in Parents
What if mental health care for our youth was non-optional?
Just as the welfare system assigns (and even financially assists with) counseling and life skills classes for biological parents, they should also meet the same needs on the other end of the relationship.
If the idea is to promote healing, educate and empower families to restore relationships and make a better future for themselves, then this is the direction we need to be telling the lawmakers to go.
The author writes from an unabashed, had-it-up-to-here, daily defeated and re-strengthened by grace and hope… kind of place. An adoptive mother of a curious kiddo, full of spirit and sass, tells her tales of homeschooling, fostering, and raising children with special needs. Thanks for joining us on this adventure from adoption to life!
What to read next:
My Autistic Child Isn’t ‘Exceptional‘
Autism In Action Guest Interview with Tosha Rollins
Raising Children With Anxiety, Anxious Toddlers Podcast
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