KFTA: Keeping Families Together Act

Let's say you have a 13-year-old daughter. She's started to hear strange voices and cut herself with knives. You take her to a therapist, but her problems don't get better. You have very basic health insurance, and your mental health benefits are about to run out. The therapist recommends intensive treatment and constant supervision. You're afraid to leave her alone for even a minute but your money is running out and your boss is getting impatient and you have to get back to your job...

What a nightmare scenario. The GAO report I'm quoting below estimates that there could be more than 12,000 children a year who are given up into state custody because their parents can't afford their mental health treatment. If they had access to treatment, their children could be cared for in the home or in their communities. Instead, the parents are forced to relinquish, I'm sure feeling great shame, and then cross their fingers that institutional custodians will take good care of their child, because they will have no more legal say, ever.

2003 GAO Report: Federal Agencies Could Play a Stronger Role in Helping States Reduce the Number of Children Placed Solely to Obtain Mental Health Services

From Page 25

The officials from state and county child-serving agencies and parents we interviewed in the 6 states that we visited said that children who were placed had severe mental illnesses, sometimes in combination with other disorders, and their parents believed they required intense treatment that could not be provided in their homes. Many of these children were violent and had tried to hurt themselves, their parents, or their siblings and often prevented their parents from meeting the needs of the other children in the family. For example, in Kansas, one parent reported that her three other children refused to remain in the home with her son who has bipolar disorder,17 is very aggressive, and has molested other children in the past. In Maryland, officials from both state and county child-serving agencies told us about a teenage boy who was mentally ill, developmentally disabled, autistic, and hospitalized. Because the boy was both violent and sexually aggressive, the county told his mother that if she brought him home from a stay in the hospital, they would remove her other children from the house. Caring for children who are seriously mentally ill can also prevent parents from obtaining full-time work or cause disruptions in their work lives. For example, an Arkansas parent now raising her grandchild does not work because of the time necessary to care for her mentally ill granddaughter. State and county officials from child-serving agencies in 5 of the 6 states that we visited told us that finding placements for children who were mentally ill and who also had other developmental disabilities was particularly difficult. One such child in Maryland was rejected by facilities that serve the developmentally disabled because he was mentally ill and rejected by facilities that serve the mentally ill because he was developmentally disabled.

The solution is to cover these cases using Medicaid. This is not an issue that particularly affects foster care system families, because the children already have Medicaid. It also doesn't affect people who are wealthy enough to afford the high cost of private psychiatric care. But it affects pretty much everyone else!

According to the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, KFTA "would provide $100 million in new family-support grants to states that will end the practice of child custody relinquishment. Parents would be able to obtain necessary mental health treatment for their children and access supportive services that help families stay together." The bill has been stalled before, but was recently reintroduced in the House and Senate by a combo of Democrats and moderate Republicans.

Please use this link to read more about the issue, and for a form you can use to send a message supporting KFTA to your Representative and Senators.