A hospital in southwest suburban Naperville is closing down its mental health services for younger children. Edward Hospital and Health Services provides a therapeutic day school called Edward Academy, plus in-patient services. Advocates say the closure reflects larger problems with the nation’s mental health system.
The day school offers education and treatment for kids with psychiatric disorders and autism. It serves about 35 children age 12 and under from many local school districts. The academy is run by the mental health branch of Edward, called Linden Oaks.
Mary Lou Mastro is the president, and she says it was a difficult decision.
MASTRO: We recognize that as a hospital, our core business is not education. Our core business is health care. And we needed, really needed the space, for other programs to serve the adolescents and adults.
She says in-patient treatment for children averaged only three to four kids a day.
MASTRO: It’s very difficult to maintain a high level of expertise and have all the resources that you need to take care of children when you have that small of a number.
The hospital plans to convert the space into more room for out-patient mental health treatment and partial hospitalization for older children and adults. Like many who try to serve those with mental illness, the hospital has limited resources.
MASTRO: Mental health services are very poorly reimbursed. We do not have an adequate, cohesive system for dealing with people who have mental health issues, and I think this is just one symptom of a looming crisis in mental health in this country.
Low reimbursement rates are just part of the story. The other is the stigma that keeps people from seeking treatment or even recognizing there’s a problem in the first place.
The National Institute of Mental Health estimates one in ten children has a severe enough mental illness to cause impairment. Yet less than a fifth get treatment. Plus there’s a shortage of child psychiatrists in many parts of the state.
WOZNIEWSKI: Children’s mental health in Illinois, most services we know are lacking.
Carol Wozniewski heads Mental Health America of Illinois. She says the Chicago metropolitan area is better off than some pockets of the state. But even here, many programs have long waiting lists. And there aren’t many intensive day school programs like Edward Academy.
WOZNIEWSKI: So we see those kids really fall by the wayside because some of them, their families won’t be able to access those services somewhere else. And/or they’ll have to send their child farther away from their home community in order to receive those services.
VOLPE: It’s a big deal in that it was a positive, well-thought-of program that went away, and went away abruptly.
Michael Volpe runs the School Association for Special Education in DuPage County.
VOLPE: If the child has reached such a need that they’re going to go outside their home school district to receive services, these are pretty significant challenges that this child is presented with. And so just losing an option makes it just that much more difficult.
Volpe says there are other programs doing a good job, and the school districts will find other services for the affected students.
But he says it’s important to remember these children and their families already face a lot of challenges, and moving to a new school just adds another one.