Mental Health Care for Kids 'Fractured'

Health Zone, 9 July, 2010

The mental health care system for children is “fractured” and needs better oversight, say critics after a Toronto Star investigation found a psychiatric centre was locking up kids who didn’t belong there.

“The role of oversight is not taken as seriously as I think it should be,” Irwin Elman, Ontario’s Children and Youth Advocate, told the Star.

Elman’s comments came after the Star revealed that the provincially funded Youthdale Treatment Centre admitted children to its secure treatment unit even though they did not have a mental disorder. Within the last two years, the Child and Family Services Review Board ordered released nearly half of the children who appealed their placements in the centre’s secure unit.


Read more: http://www.healthzone.ca/health/mindmood/mentalhealth/article/833979--mental-health-care-for-kids-fractured