Health Reporter
Before Jackie Valley tackled her series on the unmet mental health needs of Nevada's children, “community engagement” had not been something she regularly practiced. She shares how she took the plunge.
Parents. Teachers. Psychologists. Psychiatrists. Pediatricians. Therapists. Social workers. Students. State leaders. Nonprofit executives. They had come to discuss the mental health of Southern Nevada’s children, seeking answers to the question of how the state can do better.
Three cases down and a dozen more to go, Judge William Voy surveys the movement below his bench on a Monday afternoon. The fourth defendant on his calendar, a 13-year-old boy, enters from a side door connecting Family Court to the juvenile detention center. He’s no stranger to Courtroom 18.
Southern Nevada often struggles to care for children with mental health challenges. A common complaint is that Las Vegas’ mental health care system is too fragmented to care for its children successfully. “As parents, we are often faced with unfriendly systems,” one parent said at a recent forum.
Staff at University Medical Center's pediatric emergency department in Las Vegas have a nickname for Southern Nevada: the pediatric mental health vortex. “We call it the polio of our generation,” Dr. Jay Fisher said. “This is a health crisis of unbelievable proportions.”
The Mental Health Transition Team works with parents and psychiatric hospitals to develop re-entry plans, which could include designating a staff member the child feels comfortable checking in with every day and strategies so students don’t fall behind in school.
Nevada is serving a greater number of mentally ill children in recent years. “This is an epidemic,” said Dr. Jay Fisher. Decades ago, he said, physicians looked to vaccines to preventing epidemics. “This is going to be much more difficult to solve. It’s a 12-headed beast.”
In southern Nevada, waiting lists to see a psychologist stretch into the months, and residential treatment centers fill up fast. Jackie Valley of the Las Vegas Sun is embarking on a reporting project looking at the plight of children with mental illness, and what more might be done.
