MADISON — July is Disability Pride Month. It’s a time to celebrate the history and accomplishments of the disability community, but also to reflect on their experiences and struggles. Children with disabilities, whether physical, intellectual or developmental, have higher rates of mental illness than children without disabilities. Mental illness has significant and lasting negative impacts on their lives. These children who need the most help tend to be the most underserved by our system of care.
One in five children has special healthcare needs, including autism, asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, learning disabilities, speech or language disorders, intellectual disabilities or developmental disabilities. Children and young people with special healthcare needs (CYSHCN) need more care than other children but are five times more likely to go without care than children without special healthcare needs due to the challenges of finding appropriate care, and data shows that to further complicate caring for these children, more than half of CYSHCN also have a mental illness.
This fact sheet contains many recommendations on how parents, health care providers, policy makers, schools, and communities can contribute to linking CYSHCN to services and improving outcomes for these children and their families.
“Over the years, I have heard stories of parents who are extremely stressed and exhausted by the obstacles their children with special health needs face. Often their children have multiple medical conditions and parents are unable to find adequate support for their children’s mental health concerns,” said Linda Hall, Director of OCMH.
The voices of parents on OCMH’s Collective Impact Council attest to the complexities of raising a child with a disability and the interplay between disability and mental health conditions: the high levels of bullying, harassment, exclusion and isolation these children experience leads to increased rates of anxiety and depression that parents have to deal with 24/7.
“Schools have an important role to play in supporting the mental health of children with disabilities, but they simply don’t have enough funding to provide all the support parents would like,” Hall said. “We clearly need more staffing and training to support students with disabilities, especially primary school children, who are the most likely to experience seclusion and restraints.”
As students with disabilities grow, they continually encounter challenges and new barriers that they must deal with, both in school and after high school. Students with disabilities should incorporate mental health care planning into their transition plans.
“Mental health professionals are hard to find these days, but it’s even harder to find ones who can address the mental health issues of non-verbal children with autism,” Hall said.
Policymakers can provide relief by expanding compensation for caregivers and supporting the Family Caregiver Tax Credit to reduce stress for families.
Higher education programs can provide training on how to provide mental health care to youth with disabilities. Many mental health professionals lack the training and knowledge on how to best serve this population.
Communities can help by designing spaces that are accessible to all children. Wheelchair accessible playgrounds with swings, libraries and museums that have quiet spaces and calming sensory spaces, and public events that provide noise-reducing headphones are some examples of helpful actions we can take to support children with disabilities.