By Charlie Deitz
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Massachusetts – Lead: Today, families in Massachusetts hoping to get mental health and support services for children often times have to go through the court system. WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief Charlie Deitz reports a new bill being filed on Beacon Hill hopes to reform a system that supporters say hurts children more than it helps.
If a youth in Massachusetts is often truant, or a frequent runaway, or generally ungovernable to use the state's terminology, the parents have the option to bring in the courts for some help with things like mental health services and getting the kids back on track in school. State Senator Karen Spilka who chaired the Children and Families Committee from 2005-2009, says the 38 year old program tends to stigmatize the youths by exposing them to a criminal system they shouldn't be a part of.
CHINS is an acronym for Children in Need of Services, a title given by a juvenile court judge which entitles the children to a probation officer, counseling and a handful of programs meant to get them back in the fold. North Adams mayor Dick Alcombright who presides over a relatively poor city says the CHINS program has been a blessing for the errant youths.
"Alot of programming for kids to get involved to help them feel like they're a part of something, they feel like they're disconnected."
But Senator Spilka and a team of children's advocacy organizations take the position that the system is ineffective on a statewide level, noting that parents shouldn't have to relinquish custody of a child in order to get them help. She and her house colleague Paul Donato have filed a bill to overhaul the system here are the three tenets of the new idea.
"Families and children should not have to go to court to get services that they need, it should be family and child based, the third premise is a connection to community based services."
Senator Spilka even wants to get rid of the term CHINS, saying it carries a negative stigma, instead opting for FACES meaning Families and Children Engaged in Services. She has the support of two statewide groups the Parent/Professional Advocacy League, or PPAL, and The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, or MSPCC, whose CEO Marylou Sudders says not only is the new alternative better for outcomes, but it's pennywise as well.
"We're spending 4 million dollars a year on legal costs, we have a great chance to redistribute resources."
Sudders served as the State Commissioner of Mental Health for 7 years before taking over at MSPCC so she has a tacit knowledge of state budget issues as well as challenges to delivering these services as an advocate. She says that even though this bill has surfaced and died in several forms over the last 6 years, this time might be different.
Add to that Senator Spilka says a neighboring state was able to make good on this legislation already.
"Connecticut saw our bill they liked it and passed it."
The FACES reform bill is meant to take the services now available through a court order and make them more readily available to families who will be able to go directly to providers like mental health agencies, in hopes of reducing the possibility that a misbehaved youth could be turned into a criminal down the road. Mayor Alcombright worries that many of the CHINS kids don't have a strong family support structure to begin with so this may leave them in the lurch for services.