Mental Health Access

This entry was posted on 8/30/2007 4:39 PM and is filed under Mental Health.

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• 8/31/2007 8:32 AM Carol Allenza wrote:
  Our society as a whole does not recognize mental illness as an illness. Access parity does not exist within the health insurance industry. With the increase in the immigration population, both across the State and particularly in Hunterdon County, there is a whole new set of challenges regarding mental health. Immigrant parents arriving in the United States are faced with immediate challenges to their survival—getting a job, finding housing, and enrolling their children in school. In the United States, 25% pf low-income children lives in an immigrant family. In Hunterdon County, it would likely be 50% or higher. Most immigrant families are uninsured.
  
  The immigrant family faces many issues: they watch their children become “Americanized”, but do not necessarily understand either the American culture or legal system. The traditional parenting techniques that are acceptable in their home countries may be viewed as authoritarian and even as corporal punishment in the new community. They may not have the parenting skills to utilize alternative methods of discipline considered acceptable in the United States. Immigrant parents also may not always understand their new expected role in the community: involvement in schools, advocating for their children to receive basic services, such as health care, including mental health care. They may need support to move into these new roles.
  
  These stressors may have painful effects on mental wellness of individuals. Family dysfunction may develop resulting in depression, substance abuse, domestic violence, and dropping out of school.
  
  It is imperative that Hunterdon County begin to address the mental health and cultural adjustment of our Hispanic community. We should develop and support programs that address mental health issues in a culturally competent manner. The programs should include direct counseling, social support programs, English as a second language programs with cultural adjustment content, parenting classes, and community education activities. We must advocate for both the existing community and the Hispanic community to take responsibility for immigrant integration into our County.
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• 9/1/2007 1:55 PM Kelly wrote:
  Recently an acquaintance asked me to take him to a doctor so he could see about getting some medication for depression. He said he was a little bit afraid of taking medication, but he is having a harder and harder time coping and he is desperate for some kind of relief. He said that he has nobody that he can talk to because everybody he knows has problems similar to his own and they are just as depressed as he is, sometimes even worse, and he feels unwilling to burden them further with his own troubles. He is young, smart and hardworking. He is also undocumented, far from his family, dealing with a family crisis, and very fearful that he will be deported before he figures out an alternate way to survive. He said that a lot of the people his age (early 20s) turn to alcohol to self-medicate but he doesn't want to do that because he understands that it only leads to more problems.
  
  Although I am going to take him to the doctor as requested, I don't think he really needs medication, I think what he needs is somebody to talk to once in awhile, somebody objective to listen to him who understands the issues that he is facing and who can reassure him that he will get through it. I would like to know, does anybody have any experience or information on peer counseling or setting up a peer counseling network or hotline? Does anybody think something like this could work here in Hunterdon for our immigrant population?
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