Perspective: Failing our mentally ill children

Most Americans probably assume that children with mental illness are more likely to get the help they need today than they were 20 years ago. After all, the stigma associated with mental illness is less pronounced now than in years past, and more insurers, public and private, are covering treatment. But the assumption would be wrong. When it comes to mental-health services for the nation's children, the unmet need remains as high now as it was two decades ago.

That's one of several eye-opening, and alarming, findings in last week's report from Surgeon General David Satcher. The word "crisis" is overused, but Satcher makes a compelling case that, for children with mental health problems and their families, reality has indeed approached the crisis point. While one in 10 American children suffers from some form of mental illness, only 20 percent of those receive the treatment they need, according to the report.

The report offers a myriad of useful recommendations, among them beefed-up funding to train doctors, teachers and parents to recognize early signs of illness. But its major contribution may be its call to make children's mental health a national priority, one backed by federal efforts and resources.

"There is no mental health equivalent to the federal government's commitment to childhood immunization," wrote Satcher. "It is time that we as a nation took seriously the task of preventing mental health problems and treating mental illness in youth."

Satcher admits that a concerted response would be costly. But the nation already pays every time a child with mental health problems, left untreated, lands in the juvenile justice system, in alternative-education classes or on welfare.

Anyone who underestimates the human and societal costs of failing to provide treatment need only reread the Times' recent series, Under 12/Under Arrest, documenting the growing arrests of grade-school juveniles, many of whom have severe mental or emotional problems.

We fail our children when mental illness is met with more punishment than treatment.

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Click here to read Under 12/Under Arrest

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