Report: Mentally Ill Youths 'Warehoused'

[Khephra]

Thousands of mentally ill youths are unnecessarily put in juvenile detention centers to await mental health treatment, a House committee reported Wednesday.

Centers usually are not equipped to treat mental illness, and in some cases the youths have not been charged with a crime, said the report by the Democratic staff of the House Government Reform Committee.

``The use of juvenile detention facilities to house youth waiting for community mental health services is widespread and a serious national problem,'' said the report, which found that two-thirds of juvenile detention facilities hold youths who are waiting for mental health treatment.

``This misuse of detention centers as holding areas for mental health treatment is unfair to youth, undermines their health, disrupts the function of detention centers and is costly to society.''

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Youths-Mental-Health.html

[Wolftone378]

1. Lost in Space

Where are the great advocates from NAMI et al? Advocacy involves some action! Where are the advocates from our public sector mental health services? The public sector of the mental health system gets tax dollars for treatment, admittedly they do precious little of that, but, why aren't they screaming too?