This electronic update is written by SAMHSA's Resource Center to Promote Acceptance, Dignity and Social Inclusion Associated with Mental Health (ADS Center), a program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) Office of Consumer Affairs. We invite you to share this information with your friends and colleagues who share your interest in confronting prejudice and discrimination associated with mental illness and to post this information in your own newsletters or listservs. Visit the ADS Center on the Web at promoteacceptance@samhsa.hhs.gov.
In this issue...
A Letter from the ADS Center
Spotlight: Archived Training Teleconference
Online Resources
Research
Models, Programs, and Technical Assistance Tools... Youth M.O.V.E
In My Experience... Through the Eyes of a Mother by Deborah Cavitt
A Letter from the ADS Center
What are you thankful for? This age-old question typically yields equally timeless answers: family, friends, health, employment, a home.
Ask parents what they're thankful for and you'll almost always hear them respond that they are thankful for their children. Parents are in an important position to influence their children and help them address difficult challenges—like coping with and recovering from a mental health problem, and the negative attitudes and beliefs that are often associated with it.
For children, the negative attitudes and prejudice surrounding mental health problems can mean not being invited to a birthday party, sitting alone at lunch, or being bullied on a school bus. It might mean being benched by a Coach or unfairly disciplined by a teacher. In many ways, these actions can be as painful as the illness itself and can be hurtful not only to the child, but to the parents who watch him or her struggle.
This update focuses on the issue of children's mental health and the need for social inclusion. We hope that it helps parents, caregivers and other adults to learn more so that they can give children the care, support, and help that they need.
Sincerely,
The ADS Center
Spotlight: Archived Training Teleconferences
The ADS Center recently conducted a successful training teleconference, entitled "Children's Mental Health Problems and the Need for Social Inclusion." The call was recorded and can be accessed online. A transcript of the call and presentation files also are available online.
This training:
- Explored research on social exclusion for children with mental health problems and their families
- Offered a first-hand account from a young adult who grew up with a mental health problem.
- Provided an overview of strategies that may help to reduce prejudice and increase social inclusion for children and their families.
Online Resources
Mental Health: It's Part of Our Classrooms (Booklet and Training Package) (en español)
Growing evidence shows that when schools address mental health issues they can boost academic achievement, reduce absenteeism, and increase graduation rates. To help schools reap these benefits, SAMHSA developed a variety of materials: a guide for school administrators, a teacher training package, and several other tools, all designed to help educators make mental health a part of their classrooms.
SAMHSA's Caring for Every Child's Mental Health Campaign
The Caring for Every Child's Mental Health communications campaign is a national public information and education campaign to:
- Increase public awareness about the importance of protecting and nurturing the mental health of young people.
- Foster recognition that many children have mental health problems that are real, painful, and sometimes severe.
- Encourage caregivers to seek early, appropriate treatment and services.
The campaign helps families, educators, health care providers, and young people recognize mental health problems and to seek or recommend appropriate services. It also strives to reduce the negative attitudes associated with mental health problems.
Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD)
CHADD is the nation's leading non-profit organization serving individuals with AD/HD and their families. CHADD has over 16,000 members in 200 local chapters throughout the U.S. Chapters and offers support for individuals, parents, teachers, professionals, and others. CHADD also produces the bi-monthly magazine. Attention! (for members), and sponsors an annual conference. The National Resource Center on AD/HD (NRC) is the CDC-funded national clearinghouse for evidence-based information about AD/HD.
Dare to Dream
Dare to Dream is an initiative started in 2005 by the Provincial Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health to help youth get involved in mental health awareness activities. The Dare to Dream program is a youth-driven initiative that provides students with grants of up to $1,000 (for individuals) and $5,000 (for groups) to help them develop mental health awareness activities. The activities are aimed at decreasing the stigma that is associated with mental illness and helping other youths learn about mental illnesses.
Minnesota Association for Children's Mental Health
The Minnesota Association for Children's Mental Health (MACMH) began in 1989 as a small group of parents concerned about children with mental health disorders. Fifteen years later, MACMH has evolved into a statewide education and advocacy organization recognized by families and professionals as the state's primary resource for children's mental health. They currently produce more than nine children's mental health publications and recently received an award from the Campaign for Mental Health Recovery to develop a stigma reduction curriculum.
National Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health
The National Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health is family-run organization dedicated exclusively to helping children with mental health needs and their families achieve a better quality of life. They:
- Provide leadership to develop and sustain a nationwide network of family-run organizations.
- Focus the passion and cultural diversity of our membership to be a potent force for changing how systems respond to children with mental health needs and their families.
- Help policy-makers, agencies, and providers become more effective in delivering services and supports that foster healthy emotional development for all children.
The 411 on Disability Disclosure: A Workbook for Youth with Disabilities
The 411 on Disability Disclosure: A Workbook for Youth with Disabilities is designed for youth and adults working with them to learn about disability disclosure. This workbook helps young people make informed
decisions about whether or not to disclose their disability and understand how that decision may impact their education, employment, and social lives. Based on the premise that disclosure is a very personal decision, the Workbook helps young people think about and practice disclosing their disability and how to make informed decisions about disclosing their disability, decisions that will affect their educational, employment, and social lives.
The Wyoming SAGE Photovoice Project
Through visual images and small group formats children and youth with mental health needs and their families are given the opportunity to express their strengths and concerns that are often under-represented or otherwise ignored by society. Photovoice assumes that the youth and families behind the lens have the richest knowledge of their experiences and are the best persons to convey this very personalized account of their lives. It is a method that enables people to define for themselves and others, including policy makers, what is worth remembering and what needs to be changed. Photovoice invites participants to share their meaning of their lives and their culture from their perspective using their language.
Research
Chovil, I. Personal accounts: Help-seeking preferences of high school students: the impact of personal narratives. Psychiatric Services. 2004 August; 55:863-866.
Lauria-Horner B.A., Kutcher S., and Brooks S.J. The feasibility of a mental health curriculum in elementary school. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 2004 March; 49(3):208-11.
Pinfold V., Stuart H., Thornicroft G., and Arboleda-Flórez J. Working with young people: the impact of mental health awareness programmes in schools in the UK and Canada. World Psychiatry. 2005 September; 4:S1.
Simmons T.M., Novins D.K., and Allen J. Words have power: (re)-defining serious emotional disturbance for American Indian and Alaska Native children and their families. American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research. 2004 August 12; 11(2):59-64
Spitzer , A. and Cameron, C. School-age children's perceptions of mental illness. Western Journal of Nursing Research. 1995; 17(4): 398-415.
Stuart, H. Reaching out to high school youth: the effectiveness of a video-based antistigma program. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 2006 September; 51(10):647-53.
Tsang H.W., Tam P.K., Chan F., and Cheung W.M. Sources of burdens on families of individuals with mental illness. International Journal of Rehabilitation Research. 2003 June; 26(2):123-30.
Watson A.C., Otey E., Westbrook A.L., Gardner A.L., Lamb T.A., Corrigan P.W., and Fenton W.S. Changing middle schoolers' attitudes about mental illness through education. Schizophrenia Bulletin. 2004; 30(3):563-72.
Wisdom, J.P. and Agnore, C. Family heritage and depression guides: family and peer views influence adolescent attitudes about depression. Journal of Adolescence. 2007 April; 30(2):333-46.
Youth M.O.V.E. (Motivating Others through Voices of Experience) is a youth led national organization devoted to improving services and systems that support positive growth and development by uniting the voices of individuals who have lived experience in various systems including mental health, juvenile justice, education and child welfare.
Youth M.O.V.E began as a committee of the National Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health, then grew into the National Youth Development Board, and developed into its own organization. With financial support from SAMHSA, Youth M.O.V.E. recently increased the size of their Board from 12 to 18 members, located in different parts of the country.
Youth M.O.V.E has created a definition of Youth Guided Care, and has developed the characteristics of what it means to youth guided, youth directed, and even youth driven, depending on the developmental level of each person.
Youth M.O.V.E's purpose is to
- Act as consultants to youth, providers, families, and other adults.
- Be actively involved in the politics and legislation of mental health practices.
- Assist in developing the Youth Leadership Program at meetings.
- Create youth movement principles and policies.
- Develop training tools, guides, and other documents.
- Provide national youth leadership representing youth served by mental health and other youth-serving systems.
- Coach others in the area of authentic youth involvement.
For further information about Youth M.O.V.E., contact Youth M.O.V.E. National Director Carl Yonder: Youth M.O.V.E , c/o National Federation of Families for Children's Mental Health, 9605 Medical Center Drive, Suite 280, Rockville, MD, 20850; 240-403-1901; cyonder@ffcmh.org
In My Experience... Through the Eyes of a Mother by Deborah Cavitt
In 1999, my thirteen-year-old son was going through body changes due to puberty. Looking back, I remember Mike's obsessive-compulsive tendencies when as a bright, focused toddler and preschooler he memorized the names of jets, rocks, clouds, storms, baseball players, birds, dinosaurs, and many other subjects of interest. At age 11, he was a typical friendly preteen, filling out but not yet stretching up.
Growth spurts take kids by surprise and suddenly he went from being five feet tall to 5'9" at the end of seventh grade. Most of us think of a 126 pound, 5'9" person as thin, but Mike thought he was fat. He began to loath his body. He secretly decided not to eat. He was very deceptive about fooling people into thinking he was eating, stuffing food up his sleeves, asking friends to lie for him. He went from 126 pounds to 82 pounds in six months. He lost two inches in height and twice he broke bones in his feet, just from walking.
When I suspected that he had anorexia, I had difficulty finding him adequate care. Calls to Minnesota's two eating disorder programs proved futile, since long waiting lists kept patients waiting for many months before they could get help. Mike didn't have months; he was so thin and refusing to eat, so that he would have died if we had waited months.
The family medical clinic in Detroit Lakes was the best available care we could find. The psychologist was a fine man but admitted he had never treated a person with anorexia. The doctor and psychologist only weighed Mike with his heavy jeans, layers of sweatshirts, and coats. Mike was always so cold, even when everyone around him was too hot. The psychologist felt medication was unnecessary. He believed in psychoanalysis. The scale showed that Mike was gaining weight under the new care, but Mike's appearance and behavior told a different story.
We discovered that Mike had fooled the doctors by taping rolls of quarters to his body, adding more with each appointment to give the illusion of weight gain. The trick is common among people who have anorexia. Untrained health providers often are not aware of the measures a person with anorexia will take to avoid weight gain.
Mike also was exercising whenever possible. He became frightened enough to admit it was out of control when he said he was up to 5,500 sit ups a day and something made his mind think he had to beat his record every day. His bony back was raw but he still thought he was fat.
For my son and me, the stigma of dealing with his mental health disorder meant that we didn't have the support from family and friends that we would have had if his illness had been cancer or heart disease. My son was in as much danger of dying as a child with leukemia, yet there were no fundraisers or hospital visits for our plight. As his illness progressed, it was obvious that he was not starving himself in order to control or manipulate those around him. He lost control as his neurological disorder made it impossible to function normally.
Fellow male classmates treated him cruelly. He was called alien, faggot, and other derogatory terms. As he compulsively walked, carloads of young men would drive by shouting obscenities. The rural school setting was unkind. In rural northern Minnesota, it seemed as if one wasn't considered a "good" kid unless one was active in football and basketball.
As Mike's mother, advocacy and persistence for his treatment needs became my main concern for approximately three years. My parents were outstanding, but my network of support did not extend far beyond them.
After five months of going to clinic appointments, the psychologist made an emergency call to an outpatient adolescent psychiatric care for eating disorders. After several months, the doctor there became convinced that Mike need inpatient psychiatric care for anorexia. Still there wasn't any program we could get Mike into in Minnesota. Our insurance company had a practice of denying care. Only constant letter writing by the doctors and our family to the insurance company and to Senator Wellstone had an effect.
Finally, we were able to take Mike to the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinic for five months of inpatient and partial hospital care and several years of outpatient care. I resigned my job as a teacher in northern Minnesota to go to Iowa. I chose to stay there for five years because my son thrived under the excellent care.
In Iowa City, people celebrated diversity as young people chose to be an artists, musicians, poets, or GLBT. My son was treated like a freak in the rural community, but thrived in the setting that allowed young people to succeed in a variety of intellectual and artistic talents.
Mike's anorexia wasn't simply a matter of choice; it was caused by a severe chemical imbalance in his developing brain. Seven years later, he still struggles with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. But, he graduated with highest honors from the University of Iowa and is now a graduate student at Rutgers, working on his PhD in metaphysics. He is completely recovered from anorexia.
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