Approximately 20% of all kids have a special healthcare need. These needs can include autism, asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, learning disabilities, speech or language impairments, or intellectual and development disabilities. In addition to their special healthcare needs, more than half (56%) of children and youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN) have a mental health condition.

Children with special health care needs in Wisconsin face challenges at 2-3 times the rate of children without special healthcare needs. Two-thirds of CYSHCN are not flourishing (a measure of well-being), most have difficulty receiving treatment, and most are bullied. They tend to not be engaged in school, and many families report not having proper coordination of medical care for their child. These children are 5 times as likely to forgo health care as those without special health needs.

What We Can Do

Parents/Caregivers

• Reach out to Wisconsin Wayfinder, a free service that supports families of children with special needs including mental health conditions, connecting parents to confidential and personalized resources.
• Connect with advocacy groups like Disability Rights Wisconsin and MHA Wisconsin.

Providers

• Connect with the Wisconsin Child Psychiatry Consultation Program for clinical information and ideas.
• Adapt services and build expertise to meet the mental health needs of youth with disabilities.

Policymakers

• Invest in the areas of improvement outlined in the Wisconsin IDD-MH System Improvement Report.
• Increase the Medicaid payment rates to reflect the actual cost of provision of complex care to CYSHCN.

Access the Fact Sheet.

Heather Birk, OCMH Lived Experience Partner, is the parent of two neurodivergent children. She sees the challenges her children face that other kids don’t and the strain it places on families.

“Our children with disabilities often face barriers to accessing the care and support they need to thrive. While we often talk about formal supports for our children, the informal supports we receive through everyday connections with family, friends, teachers, peers at school, work colleagues, and our community as a whole go unmentioned. Having people in your life who see and accept you as you truly are is vital to long term, positive outcomes. Children with disabilities often face bullying, harassment, exclusion, and isolation at significantly higher rates than their nondisabled peers. This, compounded with the additional barriers they already face with their disability, leads to increased risks of anxiety, depression, suicide, and more. Unfortunately, many mental health care providers and facilities do not have the knowledge or capacity to help kids with disabilities, leaving families struggling to care for their children at home.”

Tracey Stanislawski, OCMH Lived Experience Partner, is the parent of a child with autism, ADD, and anxiety. She wants schools and systems to understand that children communicate through their behavior.  

“Behavior is communication. All children do well if they can – If they are struggling to communicate, that results in behaviors that are often viewed as negative. They are not giving us a hard time, instead they are having a hard time. Before my son was diagnosed, he was not willing to participate in most family activities and was almost despondent. He refused anything to do with school. His only outlet was baseball, which he found success in. We were scared to see where his life was headed. With help navigating the mental health system we got a diagnosis and were referred to occupational therapy and speech and language pathology. Without these resources I don’t know what would have happened to my son.”

Laina Hartenstein, Department of Children and Families Parent Leader in Child Welfare, is the parent of a child with ADHD, anxiety, depression, and autism. She sees the important connector mental health is to the overall well-being of children with disabilities.

“With my kids and others I know, their mental health directly affects their ability to work through the other symptoms of their disabilities. When their mental health is good, they seem to cruise through life with minimal issues from their other diagnoses. However, when their mental health is poor, everything is so much harder to deal with in everyday situations.”

Robert Kaminski, OCMH Lived Experience Partner, is the parent of children with cognitive and mental health challenges. One of his children is able to hold a job and owns a car and home whereas the other cannot hold a job and will not be able to live on their own. He sees how the systems shame children with disabilities.

“The system is constantly shaming our children by consistently reminding them that they are different and do not belong. Students with disabilities are being secluded and restrained in our schools at far higher percentages than other students. As a parent I have to figure out how to handle a situation without rejecting the child whereas our systems and schools all too often just give up. The message that sends to our kids is ‘I don’t want you here.’ I ask adults to reflect on their adolescent years in school and how difficult it was to find their place as a healthy child. Then consider how this is for our kids with disabilities who are way too often being separated and alone from classmates and adults.”

Download a PDF of this Lived Experience Insights. 

A new version of OCMH’s popular Feelings Thermometer is now available for Wisconsin’s youngest children. The Early Childhood Feelings Thermometer is a visual aid for child care providers, early childhood educators, and families to use with young children, ages 0 to 5, to help them begin naming emotions and calm challenging behaviors. Research shows the act of identifying and naming feelings can reduce the intensity of those emotions.

The thermometer features five zones. It starts at green (the calm zone) listing feelings and behaviors associated with that zone and goes up to red (the furious zone) with suggestions to help the child in the moment. Accompanying the thermometer is a simplified gauge with emoji faces ranging from happy to mad which the child can point to and communicate how they are feeling.

“We know children are struggling with their emotions and acting out in many care settings. We also know that with their behaviors children are communicating how they feel,” said OCMH Director Linda Hall.“ I often hear how challenging behaviors are interrupting learning time, especially since the pandemic. Children who can regulate their emotions are better able to make friends and learn. Helping children manage their feelings is a first step forward.”

Both the Early Childhood Feelings Thermometer and Guage are available on the OCMH website in English, Spanish, and Hmong.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a landmark Surgeon General’s Advisory on Firearm Violence on June 25, 2024 declaring firearm violence in America a public health crisis. This new Advisory is the first publication from the Office of the Surgeon General dedicated to firearm violence and its consequences for the health and well-being of the American public. The advisory details the impact of gun violence beyond death and injury, describing the layers of cascading harm for youth, families, communities, and other populations.

Firearm violence is pervasive – more than half (54%) of U.S. adults or their family members have experienced a firearm-related incident in their lives. Over the last decade, the number of people who have died from firearm-related injuries, including suicides, homicides, and accidental deaths, has been rising, and firearm violence is now the leading cause of death among children and adolescents.

With nearly 6 in 10 U.S. adults worrying “sometimes,” “almost every day,” or “every day,” about a loved one being a victim of firearm violence, the effects of the public health crisis extend well beyond physical health – it has led to a collective trauma across society that warrants heightened attention.

The Advisory outlines an evidence-informed public health approach to addressing the crisis of firearm violence. The approach involves critical research funding, implementation of prevention strategies, and increased mental health access and support. 

Read a briefing on the report.

Read the advisory.

Quotes and Facts Celebrate OCMH’s 10^th Anniversary

Partner Reflection Quotes - In honor of OCMH’s 10^th Anniversary, OCMH partners are sharing their reflections on the work OCMH has done. This month we feature Leah Jepson, Project Director – Mental Health America, and Paula Buege, prior OCMH charter member of the Executive Committee and Lived Experience Partner.  See what they have to say about lived experience and normalizing mental health.

Children's Mental Health Fact of the Month - The children’s mental health landscape in Wisconsin has changed a great deal over the past 10 years. From June through December we will highlight one children's mental health fact per month. This month we look at the number of children with special health care needs. See the Children’s Mental Health Fact of the Month here.

Check out our OCMH 10^th Anniversary special webpage.

Save the Date – School Safety Panel Discussion Wednesday, August 21, 2024, 12-1 pm via Zoom

Next month OCMH will host a panel discussion on School Safety, covering both psychological and physical safety. This work builds off the OCMH Fact Sheet on School Shootings. Panelists will discuss the importance of safety planning and safe gun storage, along with strategies to build school belonging.

Stay tuned for registration information, coming soon!

Healing Centered Engagement is a new approach to understanding youth and the issues they face. It is a holistic approach and differs from a trauma-informed care approach by shifting away from asking “what happened to you” to “what’s right with you. We have been exploring an aspect of Healing Centered Engagement in our newsletter each month since February. This month we will look at the importance of using culturally grounded practices.

Incorporating culturally grounded rituals and activities to restore well-being in youth goes beyond viewing healing from only a mental health lens and provides a focus on protective and promotive factors. This includes making sure young people receive quality, equitable, and culturally supportive services that meet their basic needs, as well as connecting young people to their communities and culture to build relationships with adults and peers who can help them restore their identity and access support when they need it.

Things to consider:

• Help young people identify and connect with mentors, peers, caregivers, family members, community elders and historians, community programs, and social action groups that share key identities with young people, such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression (SOGIE), and religious or spiritual beliefs.
• Actively engage with young people on their terms in conversations about identity. This includes creating safe spaces for young people to explore and talk about SOGIE, race, ethnicity, spirituality, etc.
• Share with young people the youth worker’s own experiences of harm and healing related to aspects of their own identity.
• Encourage young people to explore different healing activities, including healing circles or drumming circles.

Be sure to check back next month for another part in this series on Healing Centered Engagement.

Source: "Healing Centered Engagement supports not only young people, but adult providers with their own healing." by Dr. Shawn Ginwright, CEO, Flourish Agenda. Read the article.

July is Disability Pride Month

Disability Pride Month marks the anniversary of the Americans with Disability Act and celebrates people with disabilities and their contributions to society. It is also a time to recognize the barriers that people with disabilities face and to promote acceptance and empowerment. We encourage you to carve out some time this month to learn more about this important topic.