Mental-health centers for teens desperately needed

Mental-health centers for teens desperately needed
EDITOR:
I am writing in response to the March 27 Vindicator article concerning Jackie Colon, the teen-ager charged with the murder of Alex Zaloick. The article stated Jackie has been in the juvenile justice center after being released from a hospital psychiatric ward and needs to spend the next year in a mental-health residential facility. One cannot be found in Ohio to house her.
This is no surprise to me.
Our daughter was brought before the juvenile court in early 2000. A psychiatrist approved by the court evaluated her and declared she should be placed in a residential treatment facility. I also searched throughout Ohio for a facility, to no avail.
My insurance finally approved partial hospitalization which translated into a two-week outpatient treatment plan with follow-up care. Although her crime was far less severe, she needed intensive care.
Theoretically, there is funding available through a group termed CLUSTER which works within the juvenile court, but they were out of funds when our daughter was eligible to apply.
The sad story is that the mental-health care for adolescents in this state is wholly inadequate. The juvenile justice center is not a mental-health facility but how many juveniles going through the system are in need of this type of care? Does any know? Does anyone care?
Our community needs to address this issue. The system as it exists is not effective and creates heartache for families trying to find treatment for their loved ones. How do we change it?
KATHLEEN KLASOVSKY
Austintown
Protect American farmers and a safe food supply
EDITOR:
Mad cow and hoof-and-mouth disease making you queasy every time you eat? Are you worried about the safety of your food? Good. Keep worrying.
Food safety and plenty of it should be what all consumers are worried about here in the United States. Don't worry about me, and the rest of the helpless farmers, caught in the pinching vise of globalization.
Many Ohio farmers, Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana included, may be in the red -- make that deep, red -- after three consecutive years of cruel commodity prices and survival on government bailout checks. But these very same farmers are not helpless. We are intelligent, highly educated, professional and productive people who will make a living for our families somehow, somewhere despite these problems, and it may take leaving the farm. Any day now, one of us may come to town and take away your job.
But what happens when we stop raising beef, milking cows or feeding pigs? How safe will you feel buying cheese from Europe and beef from South America? Do you look forward to wondering about mad cow disease with every bite of that hamburger?
The epidemics affecting Europe agriculture should be telling you that a safe and reliable food source is something you shouldn't take lightly, is a thing worth paying for and most important -- worth protecting. Consumers should not tolerate knowing more about the origin of their underwear than the the origin of their hamburger.
This begs the question: Do you want us in your neighborhood, working with land-grant universities and under USDA standards to keep our livestock disease-free and your meat safe?
Hopefully, you have answered yes, but you have to pay us to stay there. We would rather you paid us directly through local grocery check-out lines and various other small businesses. One way or another you must pay.
Farmers have to put food on the table, too.
BRENDA MYERS
Berlin Station