Monthly Archive for March, 2005

talk of suicide


Jeff Weise resembles many of the children in Child Protection I know.

A mother that hated him, Psychotropic medications, repeated examples of self-loathing, talk of suicide and homicide.

Working with neglected and abused children has shown me a part of human development that I could not have otherwise become familiar with.

Normal children overcome feelings of self-hate and inadequacy with the help of parents, teachers, and other adults in their lives.

Abused children can’t trust the adults in their lives. Their own abuse has come from the trusted adults in their lives. These children often resent or hate authority figures as a result of the suffering adults have visited upon them.

Feelings of self-hate and inadequacy consume many of the children I work with as a guardian ad-Litem.

Children removed from their homes have been traumatized by their circumstances. Starved, beaten, and tortured children do not overcome trauma, self-hate, anxiety, and inadequacy without timely intervention and adequate mental health therapy.

Almost all abused children believe they have brought on their own abuse.

Abused children think it was something they did that made daddy do those terrible things. Raped women experience similar feelings—if I had taken another route, or I had been more observant, the terrible thing might not have happened.

My little friends talk to me about “being normal” until they reach a point of hopelessness and despair that leaves them cold to me—and cold to the rest of the people in their lives.

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A Week After Redlake

The media is still filled with coverage Jeff Weiss and the Red Lake tragedy. The pattern repeats itself; tragedy, outrage, and wonder about how it happened and what should be done about it.

A special national Swat team of psychologists has been flown into Red Lake to deal with grieving students.

In a few weeks the TV and Newspaper coverage will die down and we will go on to the next tragedy and repeat the process.

It pains me that there are no serious discussions about the mental health issues that create these violent tragedies or the steps that could be taken to help seriously troubled children cope with their problems.

As a long time guardian ad-Litem I see the sadness, depression, and mental health issues that seriously affect so many children. Our culture does not recognize or help these kids.  While psychotropic medications are everywhere, the kind of therapy that makes a difference is sadly lacking.  I have not seen it in any of the cases I have worked on at Hennepin county.

I have two GAL children who have been with me for over six years (Alex and Nancy). I profile their lives in my book INVISIBLE CHILDREN.

Had my young friends received mental health counseling when they were young, they might have been able to lead normal lives. Instead, they are full of self-loathing and dangerous behaviors, prescribed Class II stimulant drugs (like Prozac), and they have both tried suicide. In these respects, they are just like Jeff Weiss.

Jeff let many people know his homicidal/suicidal thoughts.  There was simply no help available for a very troubled young man.  The suffering of the living will go on for many years.  If you know anyone that has lost a loved one to violence you will understand this.  

How a little care might have prevented this awful tragedy could be a lesson.  I am always hopeful.

 

 

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Crime and Justice & a Great Sadness

Today I met with Tom Johnson—he runs the Council on Crime and Justice in Minneapolis.

We both have roots to Floodwood MN where my Finnish grandparents let me stay with them on the farm each summer when I was a boy (instead of getting in trouble with my pals in the inner city.)

One of the things Tom and I spoke of was the sense of warmth and community that existed growing up in a rural community.

Powerful feelings divide us within our communities today and impact the way we vote to treat our neighbors (education, race,  social safety nets.)

I find it painful that Councilman Don Samuels is kept busy holding vigils for murdered young men (almost every week) on the North side.

It hurts me that so few people care that Roosevelt high school graduated 28% of its students last year, or know that 44% of African American men living in Hennepin County were arrested in 2001.

How disconnected can we become?

What do you feel when a baby is found dead in a dumpster, a young person deliberately murders innocent people, or some other insane tragedy fills the headlines?

Do you feel a sense of loss and sadness for the suffering of the parties involved?

Or are you filled with judgment and a need to blame someone and a desire for punishment?

 

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Reality Training

A fifteen-year old boy I am a guardian ad-Litem for has recently prostituted himself.

He has taught me many lessons.  He was such a charming little boy.   He won 2nd place at an inner city high school talent show not long ago.   He has verbalized his self- hatred and tried to kill himself more than once.

A cute little girl I have worked with for many years has genital warts and a strong desire to have a baby. She has no parenting skills (nor a viable grasp of reality.)

She is fourteen and I don’t see how things could be different. The court put her on long-term birth control when she was eleven. She had just escaped ST Joe’s home for children and seduced a man at a bar.

People in the business of child protection know that traumatized children do poorly with their peers, fail in school, and suffer severe anxieties and social failures.

Helping abused children back into the role of student, citizen, or any other functioning member of the community our policies must replace (or integrate) psychotropic medications with specific and extensive mental health therapies.

Does anyone know the number of current county ward children prescribed psychotropic medications? I think it is more than we can imagine. The national number (total) of kids on psychotropic drugs is at least 6 million.

The model we use today (drugs without adequate therapy) saves a little money on the front end.

By denying the need for services we guarantee ourselves many years of state support for damaged children—who then become troubled juveniles, becoming dysfunctional adults that commit crimes and visit their mental illnesses upon their own progeny (who repeat the cycle.)

It would be a useful exercise to calculate the costs of adequately treating traumatized children versus letting them become dysfunctional adolescents, pregnant teenagers and criminals.  80% of youth aging out of foster care lead dysfunctional lives.

It causes me great pain to watch these children continue to hurt themselves and the others around them.

I’m certain that community investment in troubled youth is a sound investment.  It also strikes me that any nation that values children would find a way to invest in children.

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The Value of Healthy Children

Friends,

I met with State Senator Mee Moua recently. She is the first legislator I have connected with who shows a genuine interest in creating a public dialogue around the issues of children’s mental health.  So many legislators fail to see the social and economic value of healthy children.   Art Rolnick at the Federal Reserve Bank in MN has done extensive work to prove the point

This is a complicated topic with no simple answers. I think that makes legislators avoid the topic.

Senator Moua asked me to submit a bill that would begin a discussion on the issues of mental health services for children in the child protection system.

In the cases that I have worked on, many children removed from their homes by the county have needed counseling and not received it.

Children that have suffered severe or prolonged abuse need a counseling regimen that will be part of their life for a long time. Short term counseling for severely damaged children is just one more abandonment.

Can the prescription of psychotropic drugs like Ritilan, Prozac, without commensurate mental health services be a sound protocol for a disturbed child?

What can I do to create awareness of how many seriously troubled children are being “managed” with psychotropic medications and expected to “become normal” without the help of therapy?

 

 

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