Starving mental health care system of staff, resources hurts Connecticut

I have spent 24 years working at the Connecticut Department of Children and Families where we provide lifesaving services for children in crisis. These kids have been exposed to trauma, abuse and many other challenges that require a wide range of support to get them on a path toward healing — and very often, they need that help urgently.

I know an emergency when I see one — that’s my job as a mental health care provider. But I’m also a councilman in Middletown so additionally, I am focused on the impact on our city when we don’t invest in services and good jobs to care for our community.

From my perspective, our state and my city of Middletown are facing what amounts to a five-alarm fire that demands immediate action to protect our most vulnerable children and ensure health care providers can care for our own families.

For years Connecticut has starved our mental health system of staff and resources — in both the public and private nonprofit sectors. Unfortunately, that’s not a new story but its consequences have gotten worse, especially during the pandemic when thousands of people in Connecticut have not received the care they need.

Even as more people have required mental health care, fewer have actually been able to get it because our state’s psychiatric hospitals have closed or cut admissions. I work at the Albert J. Solnit Children’s Center, where we simply don’t have the staff to care for young girls facing life-changing trauma. In just the past month, dozens of girls have been forced to wait in emergency room hallways, unable to get the urgent help they require because the state has grossly understaffed our state facilities.

It doesn’t have to be this way, but our elected officials have let it happen by refusing to hire, recruit and retain people in these essential jobs. The truth is that we’ve been dangerously understaffed for years, trying to do more with less — and now the pandemic has pushed the state’s health care services — and us — past the breaking point.

We have to face facts in Connecticut. Our state is in the midst of an unprecedented retirement wave where over 10,000 state workers might retire this year, which will shutter many essential state services. Gov. Ned Lamont and the legislature must meet the moment by refilling all vacancies and expanding services to save lives. If not, they risk cutting off Connecticut communities from services completely in some instances — particularly Black and brown communities. We can’t provide health care without enough staff and as we’ve seen in Middletown, retirements could mean we have to shut the doors to our facilities.

But failing to fill these jobs doesn’t just hurt the people who need health care. It doubly harms many of these Black and brown communities that disproportionately provide this lifesaving care and benefit from these living wage jobs. Mental health care providers need good jobs so we can care for our own families. As a city councilman, I know that when people can buy groceries, pay their bills, cover their rent and have time with their families at the end of a long workday, that’s good for everyone.

The state’s health care includes nonprofits that provide many of these same critical services, so we can’t turn a blind eye to these jobs. Though the people working there don’t get their paycheck from the state — these are state services and the people who do that work deserve no less.

Most people working in mental health care don’t see our work as just a job. It takes a special skill to hear what we hear and see what we see, and then understand how to provide the help that creates a pathway to healing. But we also need to be able to earn a living and provide for our families so we can enjoy life and recharge to do our best for the kids we care for. Our elected officials in Hartford need to listen to their dedicated workforce about the urgent need to fill these vacancies and invest in the jobs our communities need — and then they need to act.