Recommendation: Interagency collaboration
What Parents Said...
They all want to pass the buck.... The school
didn’t want to make a referral because they would have had
to fund it. Mental health doesn’t want to make the referral
because they would have been [the one] that had to fund [it]. DSS
didn’t want to make a referral, they would have had to fund
it. So I have to go and yo-yo back and forth. I finally got them
all in a meeting together and said, “Somebody better make the
referral.” (New York)
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Because their mental health needs are neglected, children in at least
half the states often are placed in the child welfare or juvenile justice
systems.10 In some cases, families relinquish
custody or enter into voluntary agreements to place their child in the
child welfare system just to access services. As children age, their behaviors
often bring them in contact with law enforcement and juvenile justice.
These outcomes are unnecessary, generally ineffective and often damaging
to families. Nonetheless, children’s mental health needs are not
ever likely to be met solely through public mental health systems. Agencies
need to work together, with similar goals and in a coordinated way, to
improve outcomes for these children.
Federal, state and local agencies need to improve collaboration to ensure
that all systems have the same goals and objectives with respect to children’s
mental health care needs. Duplication, gaps and waste across the mental
health, education, child welfare, juvenile justice and substance abuse
systems must be eliminated.
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