In March, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) issued a new policy statement in which it encouraged all of its members to screen pediatric patients and their families for economic hardship. This announcement made national news and was later published in Pediatrics, the flagship journal of the AAP.
According to virtually every economic indicator, the United States has slogged its way out of a nasty economic recession. Jobs are more plentiful, wages are up, and people are, overall, doing better.
But, this apparent good news can seem hollow to many people.
This is the first blog post of a series in collaboration with the Lesley University Child Homelessness Initiative (CHI). For more information about the CHI curriculum, and the ways in which it seeks to empower the next generation of teachers and caregivers to understand and advocate for homeless children, visit their website.
Our prisons are loaded with teenagers and adults who suffer from psychiatric disorders.
Kids who are incarcerated have a 60% or higher rate of psychiatric syndromes according to most studies—this is roughly three times higher than the 20% of kids with psychiatric illness who are currently not incarcerated.