PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Etopia Lane, Family Advocate with Lived Experience
3:07:21
·
3 min
Etopia Lane, a mother and family advocate with lived experience, testifies about the challenges and gaps in mental health services provided by ACS and foster agencies. She shares her personal story of how her daughter was remanded despite having preventive services, and the subsequent struggle to obtain necessary mental health care.
- Lane emphasizes the need for out-of-network mental health services, which are currently being denied despite being medically necessary and potentially reimbursable.
- She highlights the negative impact on her daughter's education, with 20 missed school days and declining grades putting her promotion to senior year at risk.
- Lane expresses support for Intro 652 but suggests it might be "too late" for families already struggling with the system.
Etopia Lane
3:07:21
Thank you, chair and everyone here for this, time.
3:07:27
I am Etopia Lane, the daughter, and granddaughter of United States Army Veterans.
3:07:32
I am Brooklyn resident, small business owner, HBCU alumni, divorced mother of 1, and I am now an impacted lived experience expert and family advocate.
3:07:39
For me, 652 is great, but it's a little too late.
3:07:47
ACS and foster agencies are currently denying families medical denying families medically necessary out of network mental health preventive services for after discharge and aftercare.
3:08:00
May of 2021 was the beginning of understanding and experiencing how the lack of oversight in creating a quality controlled channel for preventive services service communications with investigating CPS workers and ACS emergency services can create the most damaging, traumatizing effects within a family.
3:08:20
In April 2021, a custody modification of my divorce decree and an ACS withdrawal prompted my family's first experience with a preventive service procured by ACS that provided a sociotherapist skilled working with African American Christian families of divorce and children with mental health diagnosis.
3:08:37
She was a black woman.
3:08:39
She was degreed and skilled in working with my daughter's specific diagnosis, a diagnosis that required modification through behavior modification through intensive dialectical and cognitive therapeutic services.
3:08:49
Through Good Shepherd services, I finally found relief and the supported I needed where there were fractures in co parenting.
3:08:56
Although the service was provided to my ex husband because our child was living with him, I was included from planning to participating in family meetings and check ins.
3:09:06
My joint legal custody was respected.
3:09:08
My then 11 year old daughter was supported as she stayed with her father.
3:09:13
Even after custody modification was reversed due to my husband's ex husband's violation of custody agreement that triggered a CPS investigation.
3:09:22
Supportive services continue.
3:09:24
However, if you fast forward to now, it is 2024.
3:09:28
My daughter was remanded in, 2021.
3:09:32
She was remanded for service, to receive services, but we had preventive services.
3:09:37
How could this happen?
3:09:39
Well, it happened.
3:09:40
ACS emergency services were called when my daughter was, placed into, when I took my daughter to an emergency, after to an emergency room after she, after she had an, emotional breakdown.
3:09:52
I was doing what I was supposed to do.
3:09:54
My daughter was remanded for mental health services after mental health, and for the state to provide those mental health services, and that I was able to, able to support them in providing the mental health provider.
3:10:07
The services were always out of network.
Luisa Linares
3:10:10
Thank you.
Etopia Lane
3:10:10
My daughter never received services.
3:10:12
Now it's 2024, but in wrapping up, it is 2024.
3:10:16
And despite the office of children's Policy allowing medically necessary out of network preventive services after discharge to be reimbursable, ACS and Siemens Society For Children and Families have denied preventive services that are out of network.
3:10:31
My daughter has no mental health services at this time.
3:10:34
She just received mental health services in March in March of 2024.
3:10:40
So there are no services now, leaving my daughter, with no mental health services in as of September as of November 2024.
3:10:49
She's missed 20 days of school.
3:10:50
She's been a b student, and now her grades, have dropped so much that they put her in promotion to her, jeopardy of her senior year, to her senior year.
Althea V. Stevens
3:11:01
Thank you.
