Speaking on behalf of mentally ill children and teenagers, many of whom are also learning-disabled, and only one-fifth of whom receive treatment or service, Gutkind ( Children's One Place ) accuses goverment, social service professionals and media of ignoring this "national disgrace." The author spent several years following three mentally handicapped adolescents from financially and emotionally ravaged families as they were shuttled among temporary shelters, group homes and a dozen psychiatric institutions where, he claims, they were "systematically tantalized or tortured with promises of reward or punishment"--$2 million having been spent to no avail on one of his "proteges." Instead, the author of this sympathetic, eye-opening study, urges a radical change from permanent institution-based care to a flexible system of higly individualized child and family therapy, detailed here.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Lee Gutkind is a professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
An anecdotal indictment of the system that treats children with mental-health problems, as well as an unpersuasive call for a new order. Gutkind (English/University of Pittsburgh; One Children's Place, 1990, etc.) dubs our institution-centered mental-health system ``absurd,'' contending that its methods aren't based on solid research. He proposes instead an untested model of individualized care based on family preservation, claiming that the need for change is too urgent to wait for research to validate this model's viability. Gutkind's interest in the mental-health system was triggered by the experiences of Daniel, a seriously troubled youth for whom he acted as a Big Brother and whom he watched being bounced from group home to mental hospital to family to the street. To understand the present system, the author sat in with doctors, nurses, social workers, and other staff members of Pittsburgh's Western Psychiatric Institute as they dealt with disturbed adolescents and their families. Individually, these professionals appear well meaning and often kind, but the rigidities of the system render their efforts largely ineffective. Though he includes brief sketches of several patients and their families, Gutkind concentrates on the Scanlons, so devastated by the behavior of their mentally disturbed teenage daughter, Meggan, that they relinquish parental rights over her. Another teenager who catches Gutkind's attention is Terri, diagnosed with multiple disorders, whose eventual commitment to an adult psychiatric hospital seems inevitable. The author intersperses these dismal stories with facts and figures demonstrating the extent of the problem (millions of American children with serious mental problems, but only one-fifth of them receiving any treatment). In conclusion, Gutkind details rather optimistically how his proposed family preservation model might have helped Danny, Meggan, and Terri. Sincere, but offering little comfort to families with disturbed children and, probably, little in the way of realistic solutions. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
YA-A series of interviews with mentally ill teens, social workers, and psychiatrists combined with Gutkind's carefully written text highlights the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that characterize childhood mental illness in the U.S. Frustrations with the medical, governmental, and health-care bureaucracies; the ever-present social stigma; the financial system; and the overwhelming difficulties of dealing with the mentally ill child in a family setting on a day-to-day basis are all addressed. This book is clearly a mandate for immediate reform.
Yvonne Reeder-Tinsley, Floris School, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
"Disorganized" and "overrestrictive" describe the entire mental health system for children, says Gutkind, author of One Children's Place: A Profile of Pediatric Medicine ( LJ 6/1/90). Gutkind weaves the life stories of three adolescents with mental health problems, and each tale is more disturbing than the last. Parents of such children describe their situations as worse than families with children suffering mental retardation or physical problems. Statistics are grim; less than 25 percent of children with mental illness receive any help at all, and for those who do, parental custody must often be terminated. Gutkind exposes the plight of social and academic institutions anxious to help but mired in a system in which millions of dollars are wasted. The call here is for nontraditional, revolutionary changes in the mental health system. For public libraries.
- Linda Beck, Indian Valley P.L., Telford, Pa.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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