January 26, 2012

A class action lawsuit against the state of Illinois alleges state welfare agencies illegally withhold treatment for children with emotional and behavioral disorders. The lawsuit could affect more than 18,000 youth with severe mental illnesses and emotional disturbances in Illinois.

 Filed against the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services, the lawsuit seeks to force Illinois to provide intensive mental health services to children who qualify for Medicaid under federal law. All foster children and adopted children whose cases are handled by the state are eligible for Medicaid.

 Attorney Robert Hugh Farley Jr. of Naperville filed the lawsuit in September on behalf of a 14-year-old boy, N.B., who lives with his mother near Chicago. Farley said he expects the judge overseeing the case to approve class action status this month.

 According to the lawsuit, N.B. has been placed in a psychiatric hospital 14 times, where he stays an average of three weeks. N.B. is extremely aggressive, doesn’t talk and has been diagnosed with moderate to severe mental retardation, autism spectrum disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, mood disorder, disruptive behavior disorder and more, the lawsuit states. He also has “a history of maladaptive and self-injurious behaviors, including hitting himself in the head, scratching himself and biting his hand.”

 “After N.B. has been discharged from the hospital, the family and outpatient services have been unsuccessful at maintaining a sufficiently supervised and therapeutic setting,” the lawsuit states. “As a result, N.B. ends up in crisis again, leading to yet another hospitalization. N.B. needs a residential treatment setting or facility to correct or ameliorate his mental and behavioral conditions. … Unless N.B. receives the necessary intensive residential services, he will likely be at risk for many more hospitalizations.”

 The lawsuit claims the state denied requests by N.B.’s mother, Angela Buchanan, for home- and community-based mental health services. N.B. is one of 18,134 children in Illinois identified by the Illinois Department of Human Services as having severe emotional and behavioral disturbances. Of those, only 220 receive intensive mental health treatment, DHS said in a 2010 report cited in the lawsuit.

 Farley says federal law requires states with Medicaid programs to provide “medically necessary” treatment – including mental health services – to Medicaid recipients. Farley previously filed a successful class-action lawsuit on behalf of disabled children who aged out of the state’s Medically Fragile/Technology Dependent Program into a different program that provides significantly less funding. The U.S. Department of Justice joined Farley against the State of Illinois, and a federal judge ordered the state to continue serving program participants after they reach age 21.

 The current lawsuit aims to prevent children with severe emotional and behavioral disturbances – many of whom are in foster care or adoptive homes – from being institutionalized if their behavior becomes too dangerous for their families to handle, Farley says.

 “Some parents are told they can’t get funding for their child’s treatment and they reach a point where they don’t pick the child up from the psychiatric hospital because they’re a danger to their other siblings,” Farley said. “Then DCFS gets called and they take custody. The parents get residential treatment (for the child), but they’ve given up custody, and that shouldn’t have to be.”

 Angela Buchanan and N.B. have a preliminary injunction against the state to prevent N.B. from being discharged from the psychiatric hospital unless the state is going to provide mental health treatment, Farley says.

 The federal government pays half of the cost of such treatment under Medicaid, Farley says. Though the state may struggle to pay its share for an increased number of children needing mental health treatment, Farley says a lack of money is not a defense for not complying with federal law.

 “Illinois…doesn’t comply with the law until they’re ordered by a court,” he says. “It shouldn’t be a surprise to them that they’re being sued, but they’ve gotten away with it for all these years.”

 Contact Patrick Yeagle at pyeagle@illinoistimes.com

Link to the article by clicking HERE

January “Ask the Doctor” Call with Dr. Ron Kessler

Save the Date: Friday, January 27, 2012

Please join us for our monthly Ask the Doctor conference call with Dr. Ken Duckworth and guest speaker, Dr. Ron Kessler. Dr. Kessler is a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School and in 2008 he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Kessler is the principal investigator of the National Comorbidity Survey, which he will discuss during this Friday’s call.

Dr. Kessler will discuss “new epidemiological data on the incidence and course of child-adolescent mental disorders in the US: The National Comorbidity Survey Adolescent Supplement (NCS-A)”

This call will be held at 11:00 a.m. ET on January 27, 2012. To access this toll-free call, please dial 1 (888) 858-6021 and enter the participant code 309918#. This call may be made from any phone.

Please note, this call will be recorded and uploaded to NAMI’s website at  www.nami.org/askthedoctor for future playback.

If you have any questions, please contact Bianca Ruffin at biancar@nami.org.

Bianca Ruffin
Program Assistant
NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Policy and Legal Affairs / Child and Adolescent Action Center
3803 N. Fairfax Dr.
Arlington, VA 22203
Main: (703) 524-7600
Fax: (703) 516-7238
www.nami.org

How did these two boys end up living in our family? If you missed this week’s Blog Talk Radio, click on the link here and listen to it on podcast!

Blog Talk Radio-Adoption Story Part II

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf

Read this story of a mother’s 3 year journey to reunite with her son. It tells of a child with bipolar illness and his exhausted mother. Instead of offering this single mother support and leading her to supportive mental health services for her son, child welfare took guardianship away from her and charged her with a crime. If all that wasn’t bad enough, they placed the boy with an abusive father who was out of state and blamed the boy’s mother for that too.

In the end, when child welfare could no longer figure out what to do with the boy, they went on a hunt for, whom?  The child’s mother of course! The very person who could have kept him all along if:

1. They’d  provided her son with appropriate mental health services

2. They’d given his mother much needed support

Click here to read Rise Magazine’s January 2012 Story of the month

“Mission Impossible”

The mission is possible by viewing a child’s mental illness under the “clinical lens” rather than a “child abuse lens.” 

For those of you who are interested in the most recent EPSDT lawsuit, you can find copies of the briefs and filings on attorney, Michele Schneiderheinze’s website at

http://www.mnslawoffice.com/epsdt

To save you from having to read 100 pages of legal dialect, I’ll try to summarily update in laymen’s terms here. Bear in mind, I’m not a lawyer, so feel free to qualify and clarify my comments. This is intended to give you a short timeline and general overview of the proceedings.

The timeline is as follows:

9/29/11 Initial filing of N.B vs. Julie Hamos. This is a lawsuit filed by a mother on behalf of her adolescent son against Julie Hamos, Director of HFS. HFS is the Illinois state department responsible for administering Medicaid. The suit was filed on behalf of this young man and a similar class which includes Medicaid eligible children up to age 21, who have severe mental and emotional disturbances.

The suit identifies the following:
• The state of Illinois has identified 18,134 children with severe mental and emotional disturbances. Of those children, 220 are receiving in home and community based services 145 are in residential treatment using ICG as a funding source, and 75 are being served in group homes.
• In FY 2007, DHS received requests for 1,051 ICG applications. Of those, 81 families received grants.
• Large numbers of families wait on the PUNS list, including 496 children identified as having “Emergency Need” and 1627 identified as having “Critical Need.”
• The suit asks for injunctive relief (for the denials to stop) and declaratory relief (to set a precedent that it doesn’t happen again).
• The suit alleges violations of the EPSDT provision of Medicaid, ADA, and the Rehabilitation Act.

10/1/11 Pleading filed to ask for certification as class action.

10/08/11 Four additional plaintiffs were added to the complaint.

10/18/11 Pleading filed for an injunction on behalf of one of the plaintiffs. This asks for the court to enforce EPSDT provision for the child until the court settles the matter.

11/16/11 Attorneys for Attorney General, Lisa Madigan, answer with a defense, agreeing on some of the points and denying that there is a claim for the class under the law. They also deny that this suit should be certified as a class.

12/14/11 Defense formal pleading to the court to deny the request for class certification.

12/22/11 Plaintiffs reply to the defense’s pleading reiterating solid reasons the suit should be certified as a class.

Federal court judge, honorable Judge Pallmeyer, is currently writing her opinion as to whether the suit will be certified as a class action.

This is a very important landmark case in Illinois, which, if won, will positively impact mental health services for children in Illinois!

For a preview of the family part of the story, check out www.blogtalkradio.com and put my name in the search box.

This video begins a series of the second half of the book, where I’ll be talking about the government part of the story. Follow me on Youtube!

You planned on your child going to school, making nice friends, working together with him on his homework, and joining school activities. But somewhere along the way, things went completely awry.

Your child is not succeeding as well as you planned. He is not doing well in one or more areas-socially, emotionally, behaviorally, or academically. What do you do now?

 ad·vo·cate- verb (used with object) to speak or write in favor of; support or urge by argument; recommend publicly: The mother advocated for her son’s education.  

Now is the best time to become acquainted with the word advocate, and since no one knows and loves your child as much as you do; you are the best person to be his spokesperson. You are the only one who has your child’s history, medical background, and knows how he responds to various stimuli and circumstances.

ADVOC-8: 

8 Things Every Parent, Guardian, or Child Advocate Should Know

By Toni Hoy

1. Have confidence in yourself-only you have complete knowledge of your child and his needs. Speak with authority, solid conviction, and be the voice of reason.
2. Take a support person-the facilitator may or may not tell you that you may bring someone with you. An objective person will often pick up on things that you may overlook. It can be a relative, trusted friend, or even an attorney.
3. Know the team and their roles-listen carefully to each name and title. Don’t be shy about asking someone what their title means, how their role pertains to your child, or when you should direct your questions to that person.
4. Take notes-always bring a notepad, paper, and any notes or reports that may help you. Write down the names of all attendees, with careful notes about everything that is said. You can always refer to your notes later. Consider copying notes into a file on your computer. A journal of staffing notes can be invaluable farther down the journey.
5. Listen to the others-usually, everyone gets a chance to provide input, including parents. If you are overlooked, ask for your chance to speak. Attendees may have good insight, a frame of reference, or a plan that you may not have thought about. Be respectful and consider alternatives to your own thinking.
6. Ask questions-clarify meanings by asking pointed questions. Seek definitions regarding unfamiliar terms. Retain notes for later reference.
7. Stay focused on meeting your child’s needs-the whole goal of such a staffing is to help your child improve and succeed. Don’t sweat the small stuff, rather honing in on specific steps that can be taken to meet his needs.
8. Know the next steps-don’t leave the meeting without having full understanding of what the group agrees the next steps should be and when they are expected to be implemented. Pencil the next meeting date on your calendar and plan to attend so you can check on progress.

Tomorrow night on Blog Talk Radio I will be talking about how and when and why we adopted.

Tune in tomorrow night at 10pm for a 15 minute live broadcast of the beginning of our adoption journey, which began 15 years ago. If you miss the broadcast, click on the link and listen to the podcast.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/secondtimefosterchild/2012/01/16/second-time-foster-child

If you missed my radio program this week, please click the link below to listen on podcast. This week I spoke about how I addressed my critics, the “howdareyas” and the “whywudjawannas.”

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/secondtimefosterchild/2012/01/09/second-time-foster-childhttp://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf

January 20^th Children’s Conference Call with Dr. Ken Duckworth

Save the Date: Friday, January 20th, 2011, from 11:00a.m. to 12:30p.m. Eastern Time

Topic: The Needs of Youth Who Have a Parent Living with Mental Illness and Effective Programs for These Families

We are very pleased to have Joanne Riebschleger, Ph.D., a national expert on this topic who has worked with youth who have a family member with a mental illness, with Dr. Ken Duckworth to discuss the needs of children who have a parent living with a mental illness and effective programs for these families.

Friday children’s conference calls with Dr. Ken Duckworth, NAMI’s medical director and a child and adolescent psychiatrist, take place on the third Friday of every month. The calls are toll free and are scheduled from 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. E.T. To access the toll-free call, please dial 1-888-858-6021; access number 309918#. We hope that you will join us!

NAMI’s New Family Guide on Integrated Care is Available

NAMI has developed a new family guide on Integrating Mental Health and Pediatric Primary Care. The guide provides families with practical information on how to become more involved in the integrated care movement to improve the quality of care that their child receives.

Integrated care refers to the practice of incorporating mental health care into primary care settings and primary care into mental health and substance abuse care settings. Interest in mental health and primary care integration is growing and many communities have begun to pilot innovative approaches to integrated care that promise to provide higher quality, comprehensive and coordinated care for youth and their families.

Integrated care presents youth and families with unique opportunities to actively participate with both primary care and mental health providers in the integration of their care. This guide informs families about what integrated care means, the benefits of integrated care, what it looks like in practice, how it impacts youth and families and what they can do to become involved in the movement toward integrated care.

To order a free hard copy of the guide, please email Dana Markey, Program Manager, at danac@nami.org. If you would like bulk orders of the guide, please email Dana with your request as well. The family guide can also be accessed online at www.nami.org/primarycare.