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Welcome to the new home of the Michigan
Association for Children with Emotional Disorders. Check back often for exciting new updates
to the MACED website. |
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MACED led the effort in the late
1950s and 60s to establish a full continuum of care specifically designed for
children and adolescents with emotional disorders, including outpatient,
respite, residential care, acute hospitalization and long term hospital care,
when needed. It is hard to imagine
that children were hospitalized in adult hospitals less than 50 years
ago. By 1980, services along the
continuum were available throughout the State of Michigan. During the last decade, however the
continuum of care has been dismantled, leaving children in all areas of the
State without access to a full array of services. In 1996, the Children’s Committee of the
Michigan Psychiatric Society prepared a report on the state of mental health
services for children/adolescents in Michigan. The report was highly critical of the gaps
in public mental health care for children.
Currently, the situation for children and adolescents with emotional
disorders is far more desperate. There has been a stunning drop in
the percentage of expenditures in the mental health budget for children over
the last decade and on average Community Mental Health Programs expend 7% of
their budget for children’s mental health services. In Oakland County that figure is only
3%. In 1985, 22% of the mental health
budget was allocated for children and adolescents. The number of children provided
mental health care is falling steadily and the intensity of services and
level of care provided to children have deteriorated. There is only one remaining state hospital
for children, Hawthorn Center in Northville.
There are no psychiatric beds for children in the County of Wayne
(aside from Hawthorn that goes under-utilized.) Despite the staggering need for ling tern
care for children with serious emotional disorders—but because the CMHs are
unwilling to approve out-of-home placements any longer—the current patient
census at Hawthorn is only 60. The
number of specialized residential placements has decreased dramatically and
there are waiting lists at every facility that treats children with serious
emotional disorders. As noted earlier, MACED represents
100’s of families in Michigan who are seeking mental health services for
their children, and that is the core function of the Association. However, MACED is also involved in advocacy
efforts to persuade policy makers to allocate adequate funds to children’s
mental health services. The alarming
rate at which expenditures for children have decreased could result in a
return to the days when there were no specialized children’s mental health
services. |
