Link – Leaving No Kid Behind: The Need For More Child Psychiatrists

This seems like a huge problem…

Given how few children and adolescents get the care they need, schools too often become the de facto front line for explosive children who might have behavioral problems for a host of complicated reasons, including the possible toxic combination of ADHD and trauma. Researchers have found that children who exhibit aggressive or problematic behaviors wind up being over-medicated, while the real problems — poverty, family discord, poor nutrition or systematic discrimination — are left untreated.

With a mere 8,000 child psychiatrists in the United States, with estimates that 30,000 are needed, we need to become more discriminating with how we use the scarce resource of child psychiatrists.

We already know the best thing we can do for anyone dealing with mental health issues, or surviving child abuse, is get them help early. The earlier the better, in fact.

But what if there simply isn’t any available? How much do we all pay for that later?

http://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2017/06/13/child-psychiatrist-need-nancy-rappaport-j-wesley-boyd