Mental Health & Trauma

“Every day is stressful out here," says 49-year-old Kim Stanley, who is homeless and suffers from mental illness. "You’re tired; you’re exhausted ... and when people treat you badly for no reason, you’re crushed; you’re overwhelmed and crushed.”

Parents. Teachers. Psychologists. Psychiatrists. Pediatricians. Therapists. Social workers. Students. State leaders. Nonprofit executives. They had come to discuss the mental health of Southern Nevada’s children, seeking answers to the question of how the state can do better.

Detroit has the highest rate of asthma among young children in America’s 18 largest cities, a problem that experts link to urban ills that could affect their health and learning for the rest of their lives.

“In many African American communities, mental health issues have a history of being undertreated and underdiagnosed.” That was the beginning of the host intro for my radio series on mental health care within African American communities, and a focus sentence that led me throughout my reporting.

Three cases down and a dozen more to go, Judge William Voy surveys the movement below his bench on a Monday afternoon. The fourth defendant on his calendar, a 13-year-old boy, enters from a side door connecting Family Court to the juvenile detention center. He’s no stranger to Courtroom 18.

An unusual parenting intervention aims to strengthen the bonds between homeless parents and their children. The program hopes its participants’ parenting will become less harsh, and that there will be fewer reports of abuse and neglect after they move out.

In West Oakland, Rev. Donna Allen is trying to make sure church members understand that it’s not just faith that they can lean on when facing mental health problems. Alameda County has invested more than $1 million to help groups bring mental health services to underserved communities.

Southern Nevada often struggles to care for children with mental health challenges. A common complaint is that Las Vegas’ mental health care system is too fragmented to care for its children successfully. “As parents, we are often faced with unfriendly systems,” one parent said at a recent forum.

Staff at University Medical Center's pediatric emergency department in Las Vegas have a nickname for Southern Nevada: the pediatric mental health vortex. “We call it the polio of our generation,” Dr. Jay Fisher said. “This is a health crisis of unbelievable proportions.”

My story for the 2015 California Data Fellowship will look at mental health encounters involving police and deputies, hospitals and emergency rooms, jails and courts. The goal is to quantify different type of mental health encounters using available data, and lay out the policy implications.