State showing progress, failures, kids' report says
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18
By Larry Levy and Randy Ellis
Published: January 25, 2008
One out of every five Oklahoma children ages 9 through 17 have a diagnosable mental illness or addiction disorder, according to a status report released Thursday by the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy.
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Childhood mental illness
Every year, the institute identifies one aspect of child welfare to be the focus of special attention.
This year, childhood mental illness, addiction disorders and other behavioral health issues were chosen because of the high rate of incidents in Oklahoma and because the areas don't often get the attention needed, Roberts said.
The large number of Oklahoma natural disasters can be blamed for part of the problem, the report said. "Oklahomans are not strangers to the devastation caused by trauma,” the report said.
"According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Oklahoma ranks first per capita in federal disaster declarations. Between Nov. 27, 2000, and Aug. 31, 2007, FEMA designated various Oklahoma counties as federal disaster areas more than 615 times because of Oklahoma tornadoes, fires, floods and winter storms. On average, FEMA declares eight Oklahoma counties as federal disaster areas every month.”
"The relationship between a child's exposure to trauma and their risk for developing a mental illness, addiction disorder or behavioral disorder is well established,” the report said.”
The 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City left many Oklahoma children traumatized, the report said.
High drug and alcohol use among Oklahoma children is another factor cited in the report.
"Before the age of 13, one in four high school students drank alcohol (25.2 percent). One in 10 (9.4 percent) tried marijuana. The younger people are when they begin to drink alcohol and use illegal drugs the more likely they are to become addicted,” the report stated.
The report said 76.5 percent of Oklahoma high school students have tried alcohol and more than one in four are binge drinkers.
"One out of every 10 young Oklahomans (ages 9 through 17) may have a substance disorder,” the report said.
Child abuse and neglect, low birthweights and poverty are other factors that increase the likelihood of psychological disorders, the report indicated.
Treatment lacking
The report laments that mental health treatment for children has been slow to emerge.
More than 60 percent of Oklahoma children (ages 9 through 17) suffering from mental illness or addiction disorders are not served by Medicaid, the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services or the Office of Juvenile Affairs, the report states.
"Mental health and behavior disorders clearly have their origins in the first five years of life,” said Hiram Fitzgerald, executive director of the World Association for Infant Mental Health.
"It is too late to intervene in attention deficit disorder at age 5,” he said.
"It is too late to invest in children in adolescence because you are investing most of your resources in incarceration.”
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Related Topics:
Health and Fitness, Mental Health, Education, Elementary and High School Education, High School Education
What does this say about Oklahoma schools and the money spent for education? What does this say about parents? What a failure the school system has been to these kids. More counselors are not the answer. I would like that the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy publish their complete study so as to be professionally reviewed.
Arkansas, Louisana, Kansas, New Mexico or Colorado do not have system of public technology training that compares to this system. Vicki, if you read my post again, I did not use the term special ed. All students have the ability to learn beyond their abiltiy. My complaint is with the vo tech system itself. Who are under the same NCLB microscope as are all the public schools;hence they tend to select and place students in areas of high achievement for that student. My use of the word spoon fed could apply to any student who was not challenged to achieve beyond their ability.
But we know some students are removed from class because it's easy than to deal with the real problem that my rest on the teacher who's(culturally impaired.
You can motivate people to reach levels of lawyers,teachers,doctors etc and it has nothing to do with pluralistic school district doing it for them.
JH - Not all the kids in special ed are "spoon fed" through school as you put it.
I say this simply because I am a mother of three beautiful kids.. my 15 yrs old Is college bound (if I have anything to do with it) she is capable of making straight A's IF she applies herself.. then I have a 12 yr old (who let me start by saying he does not have a mental issue) but he is in special ed for reading and math. These two subjects he just can not seem to get the hang of. He/we work on the subject on a daily basis and he tries extremely hard.. but still struggles. ALTHOUGH if you put a motorcycle that doesn't run in front of him he will have it running good as new before the evening comes. Mechanically is the the smartest 12 yr old I have seen. I do not think for one second he will go to college or survive in college.. but Vo Tech will help him get in the mechanic field.. heck he could be an Aircraft mechanic working at Tinker making more money than I do..
SO don't down the kids in special ed or the kids that can't cut it in college.. Every kid is different and each will excel in his or her own individual way!
As a social service professional for the past 25 years in Oklahoma I have seen our social service infrastructure robbed and neglected time and time again. People aren't entering professional mental health as a career because the stress is astronomical, community respect is non-existent and the pay is low. Each year caseloads of child welfare workers increase because the conditions in Oklahoma homes are deteriorating and because the State cannot attract enough qualified and skilled individuals willing to do the job for the measly salaries they receive. If you were to compare Oklahoma's mental health and social service system and infrastructure (including community mental health, child welfare, private sector mental health, etc.) to the infrastructure of the state's roads and bridges, then there would be potholes ten feet wide and ten feet deep every mile and there would be one usable bridge in about 27 counties and none in the other 50. To navigate to the other side of a stream or river you would either have to swim or have a boat.
It's time Oklahomans put there rugged individualist, pioneer mentality aside and recognize that it doesn't hurt or look bad to seek out some mental health services when there is a problem in their lives and family. Today, those who do seek help wait until it is too late and the damage has been done to almost irreversible status. Oklahoman's need to call and write their elected officials, particularly in the Legislature and tell them that they must do whatever is necessary to fix the mental health and social service infrastructure issues in Oklahoma. If it means cutting other systems, agencies or pet projects, then so be it. And the problems are so huge waiting another year just makes the monster grow bigger and stronger. Wake Up, Citizen of Oklahoma. Our future depends on quality and quantity of mental health care and services...not on better education (at this point). Once Oklahoma's mental health issues are in better control, then a better educational system will reap results. Pumping money into education is like pouring more water in a barrel with multiple leaks...it won't hold water.
You have many children brought up today that are spoiled, lazy, disrespectful, neglected, abused, and have that "entitlement mentality" of the world owes me something. Then, as teachers, we are suppose to control and teach these children in the classroom with 20 or more children. AND it's the teacher's fault if these children don't do well on state-mandated tests.
I still stay in touch with many teachers and they shake their heads when discussing a lot of today's students. They say half of their classes won't do their assigned work and when they talk to the parents, many of them can't get their children to mind them at home. It's really sad and don't have a solution. I wish I did.
I do suggest this, though. Many of these children who don't care about an education and have shown it by the 6th grade should be tracked out of the regular college-prep curriculum and into a vocational-technical-trade type school by the seventh grade. All a lot of these students do is disrupt classes in the regular schools because they are bored and don't value an education, and this keeps the students who care about an education from learning because the teacher is spending more time dealing with the disruptive students instead of teaching the subject matter. Also, to pay for these vocational schools, I would take all the special education money and fund it that way. Move the special-ed programs to these schools and out of the regular school setting. Special-education is no more than "college-prep light". These students need to learn a trade; they are not college bound so why try to teach them college-prep material. Implement their "special needs" training with the trade they are learning.
I know what I have suggested will ruffle some feathers but I am being pragmatic through my experiences. And a lot of teachers and principals agree with me on this. Our regular schools are just not fulfilling the needs of a lot of our students because we are geared to trying to 'force-feed' a college prep curriculum to most of these students, and a lot of them don't care about going to college or don't have the intellectual ability to attend one.
The bottom line is to make a lot of these children successful and productive. Put them in a vocational-trade school where they can be successful and learn a trade at the same time while the regular school test scores will go up because the students there will learn better with a lot less disruptions.
The sad thing about today's USA economy is that professional sports is probably the only big business that keeps the majority of their company/ employee's here in USA.
Stop voting for people who will not provide affordable health care for children and our many tax payers.
I wonder how many in the survey without healthcare were children from our many proud veterans.