New priority: Emotional stability as important as students’ studies
As a hostage survivor, PTSD patient, and 20-year attorney in the systems that serve California children, I had seen enough. I had watched too many families struggle to access mental health services only to be left to watch their children fall apart — ending up deteriorating, incarcerated or worse.
When I think about these situations, the same anxiety I felt as a hostage wells up. I find myself back in September 1990, when my sister and I were taken hostage in Henry’s Bar in Berkeley by a paranoid schizophrenic. I remember the people who were injured, our hostage-taker, and the authorities desperately trying to get us out. And I remember my own PTSD.
So, almost exactly one year ago, I penned a desperate plea to whoever would listen (Open Forum: “If there were political will, there’d be a way,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 27, 2014).
That’s when I realized I couldn’t continue to just watch as we put the social, emotional and behavioral health of our children on the back burner — and then act surprised when terrible things happened.
In the days after my Open Forum piece was published, people started asking: “What can we do? How can we fix this?” Many were shocked by how I had exposed my inner fears; and others said the sharing would allow them to do the same.
People responsible to children — be they parents, therapists, teachers, counselors, social workers or advocates know: We simply do not make a priori-
ty of effectively addressing the social, emotional and behavioral health of our children and their families. We pay the price.
What surprises me most is it is a price we don’t have to pay. We choose it.
We choose it by allowing disconnected systems attempt to serve the underlying social, emotional and behavioral needs for our children. We choose it by not recognizing that social, emotional and behavioral health are just as important as reading, writing or math. We choose it by encouraging people to bury their struggles of the mind, rather than acknowledging them. We choose it by saying we have mental health parity, when we know we don’t. We choose it by accepting a reality where fewer than 1 in 10 California children access the mental health services they need. We choose it in not allocating the necessary resources to fix things.
But the past year has taught me there is hope.
I have spent my past year with veterans of these agencies, all dedicated to breaking the barriers to improved social, emotional and behavioral health — and I am humbled by their commitment and tirelessness. There is a tremendous amount of work to be done, but there is no reason we can’t get it done if we prioritize social, emotional and behavioral health and build sustainable, effective, school-based and community programs that address these needs for all of our children, at all ages, and all stages.
If these stories speak to you, or someone you love, please spread the word. Please support efforts and programs that seek to put first the social, emotional and behavioral well-being of our children. Please choose health.
We can’t change anything if we don’t change that.