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Rep. Napolitano Hosts Mental Health Summit

September 16, 2009

Yesterday Congresswoman Grace F. Napolitano hosted her Mental Health Summit as part of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s Hispanic Heritage Month events in Washington, DC.

The Congresswoman, who co-chairs the Congressional Mental Health Caucus, was joined by the Honorable Patricia A. Macias, Presiding Judge of the 388th Family District Court in Texas and former president of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, Dr. Anita Chandra, behaviorial scientist and child and adolescent health expert from the RAND Corporation, Jackie Contreras, child psychologist and managing director for strategic consulting at Casey Family Programs, Kathi Grasso, senior juvenile justice policy and legal advisor at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and Dr. Panayiota Courelli, psychologist and director of the Foster Grandparent Program in the California Division of Juvenile Justice. The panel discussed youth mental health needs and the public system, the impact on Latino youth in particular, and the Mental Health in Schools Act, a bill introduced by Napolitano that would provide mental health services to select schools.

“We need to remove the stigma surrounding mental health – too often, especially in Latino culture, it is the problem we don’t see, we don’t hear, we don’t talk about,” Napolitano said. “It is up to us as a community to remove that stigma, and we need health care providers, public institutions, advocacy organizations and our own families to all work together.”

The importance of this message was echoed by the other participants. Judge Macias noted that even when youth did have access to mental health care they were often too afraid of being scorned by their friends and family to take advantage of it. Dr. Chandra described a need to “start thinking of maintaining our daily mental health as being as normal and necessary as maintaining our daily physical health.”

“In some communities, we are at risk for losing an entire generation of youngsters,” Napolitano said, highlighting the importance of the Mental Health in Schools Act in combating mental health problems in children. The entire panel agreed that there was a need for increased financing and attention for mental health programs. Dr. Chandra described the “dearth of mental health care professionals” in the United States, which contributes to incarceration, substance abuse, and other social problems. Contreras vividly described what was at stake with a story about a student who committed suicide at school, saying it could have been averted if the student had been helped after expressing his feelings instead of being shunned. Dr. Courelli described how properly funded mental health programs can rehabilitate incarcerated youth. “Effective mental health programs can build self-esteem, confidence, consciousness of the needs of others and an understanding of how to repay social debt,” Dr. Courelli said.

Napolitano ended the discussion with a call to action. “Children don’t vote,” she said. “So it is up to us and the entire community to make mental health a priority so that they can lead normal, productive lives.”

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