Q&A
Feedback on proposed legislation for mental health services
2:36:25
·
4 min
Council Member Stevens asks for feedback on the proposed legislation, particularly regarding mental health services for children in the foster care system. Various speakers provide input, highlighting concerns about the duration of services, cultural relevance, and the potential negative impacts of mandating services through ACS.
- Speakers suggest extending mental health services beyond the proposed one-year period
- There are calls for culturally relevant mental health providers and continuity of care
- Concerns are raised about mandating services and the potential for information to be used against families by ACS
- Suggestions are made to focus on community-based, trauma-informed practices rather than traditional clinical settings
Althea V. Stevens
2:36:25
But I do wanna ask, about feedback from about the the the legislation that we have today, and does anybody have any additional feedback about that?
Tanesha Grant
2:36:38
I do.
2:36:38
I would say that, for the healthcare services, it needs to be longer than a year.
Michelle D. Winfield
2:36:43
Mhmm.
Tanesha Grant
2:36:44
I didn't get any healthcare until I literally had a breakdown in my 30th.
2:36:50
And if I would have been getting and I also would like to say that it needs to be culturally relevant.
2:36:56
When I start first started getting therapy, it was always, like, a young blonde haired, blue eyed girl who was just coming to the clinic in my neighborhood to do her residency.
2:37:06
So there is a lot of high turnover.
2:37:09
When we talk about mental health care, it needs to be culturally relevant, and it it doesn't need to be people that's just there to go somewhere else.
2:37:18
It needs to be, you know, people that are going to stay for a while because what happened is, you know, we have to tell our story over
Ericka Brewington
2:37:25
and over
Tanesha Grant
2:37:26
and over again.
UNKNOWN
2:37:27
It's traumatic.
Tanesha Grant
2:37:27
And then it's very traumatic, and we know that we're not cared for.
2:37:30
We know that this person is just here to get to the next place that they wanna be.
2:37:34
So I I think that any child that goes into foster care needs mental health because there's a constant identity crisis.
2:37:42
Like, imagine being separated from
Ericka Brewington
2:37:44
your whole your whole bloodline
Tanesha Grant
2:37:45
and then growing up and having kids of your own and, like, nothing to tie you.
2:37:49
And regardless of what people will say, black people are we're very family oriented.
2:37:54
So when we don't have family, and we're told that nobody wanted you and stuff like that, that that imprints on our mental health, and it doesn't go away.
2:38:02
So I would say way longer than a year that any child that is separated from their
UNKNOWN
2:38:08
they should
Tanesha Grant
2:38:08
have support, they have
Althea V. Stevens
2:38:09
access to it.
2:38:10
Yeah.
2:38:10
No.
2:38:11
I I think that's really important.
2:38:12
Even the the fact around, like, making sure that we have culturally relevant I know, chair Lee was trying to get a pilot started a pilot started, but we do need to figure out what does that recruitment look like from our communities and neighborhoods to ensure that we have people who look like the folks that are being, mostly impacted.
2:38:28
Does anyone else have anything you wanna add?
Nila Natarajan
2:38:29
Yes.
2:38:29
Thank you.
2:38:30
I can speak to the other piece of legislation that
Nora McCarthy
2:38:33
Oh.
2:38:34
Yes.
2:38:34
Just about the mental health bill, I 100% agree.
2:38:37
Like, we need access to services, but we don't need mandated services.
2:38:41
Connecting them to ACS is troublesome, and I think we could really do well to look at restorative, circle based practices, group based practices for young people that are trauma informed.
2:38:53
There's a group called, Hidden Water that does incredible work around child support.
Althea V. Stevens
2:38:58
There's a number of groups.
2:38:59
Mhmm.
2:38:59
Bronx Solutions and all these folks
Nora McCarthy
2:39:00
that do.
2:39:00
Yeah.
2:39:00
We can't just keep putting kids into a room and saying, You have to be here for your health.
2:39:05
You know?
2:39:05
I worked with young people in foster care for a long time.
2:39:08
And, making sure that you have somebody that you can turn to and that you're not constantly refragmenting services, making special pilots that are not available, sticking things into shelters and then they end.
2:39:20
Mhmm.
2:39:21
The nature of our clinical mental health services is that they're not really therapy.
2:39:26
And so, if it's gonna be looked at, it really needs to be looked at.
2:39:29
Like, what do young people want?
2:39:31
How do we deliver that?
2:39:32
And how do we make it continuous during a time of transition into turmoil?
Michelle D. Winfield
2:39:36
Yeah.
2:39:37
I just have one question too.
Jesse McGleughlin
2:39:39
I just wanted to echo that.
2:39:41
I mean, I think my experience in representing clients is that clients are very reticent to fully share their mental health realities with clinicians when they know that those results and that private information may come back to ACS and the prosecuting agency.
2:39:56
And so I have the same concern as Nora about, you know, mandating mental health services.
2:40:01
I think support you know, there's there's a tension between support as a mandate.
2:40:05
So, you know, this idea that people should be able to access the resources they need without, that being a mandate.
2:40:11
And even if it's after ACS involvement, because it's, being referred by ACS, I think there's a a a real concern and a a fair concern that that might, you know, come back to ACS.
2:40:21
And so I would be challenging the committee to be thinking about how we can resource community based organizations, mental health organizations, but not as a mandate or as a connected to a system of punishment.
Nila Natarajan
2:40:37
The one specific thing I'll add to that is a lot of the preventive agencies and a lot of the even mental health provision agencies are this are also foster agencies.
2:40:46
They have this they're in the same building.
2:40:48
So it's it's ACS, but it's also, I think a misnomer to think of those agencies as truly community based when they're actually the contracted agency that keeps families separated.
