The emotional health of our immigrant children

Specialists in both disability and psychology agree that the arrival of a child with disabilities creates in most parents first a state of shock, followed by the progression through the stages of denial, then anger and resentment before healing begins. They then enter the period of acceptance and begin to come to terms with the situation.

Still it is a constant pain and rather than subsiding, it actually sharpens, especially when the child starts school. This may be the hardest moment for parents. They can’t be there any more to protect their child from mistreatment, or to assure themselves that the teacher is looking after the child’s needs.

Their child is just another number among hundreds of students at the mercy of district, county, state and even federal standards. Not many will know that these children just barely grasp their own reality.

Such students, in addition to the challenges of learning English as a second language and poverty, have a medical condition to contend with. Frequently there is denial, either on the part of the family or of the school staff. The reasons may be scarcity of services, or lack of resources in the home. Students can go for years suffering this condition in silence while the parents attribute it to poor behavior at school, where the child becomes a problem student.

According to a study by UCLS researchers, “in California more than 300,000 children between the ages of 4 and 11, or 8.5 percent, need mental health services. But only a quarter of them receive appropriate mental health treatment.” Of course Sonoma County was included in the study.

From my experience working in the Latino community, I can say that sadly, even though most of these children have health coverage, there is a series of barriers that prevents their receiving treatment. One barrier is definitely the shortage of mental health providers in Sonoma County, resulting in long delays, even up to six months.

Another barrier is when their parents have limited English, making it extremely difficult to navigate a complex health system. I see all the time that parents with strong English have much greater success obtaining services and treatment for their children. In my work with parents, I’ve seen how difficult things can be when a child hasn’t received treatment at an early age. Emotional and behavioral problems have become chronic, and very difficult to treat.

Finally there is one more barrier that needs to be noted: the stigma. The stigma is one of the biggest obstacles for all children who need services for the disturbing effects of a mental health condition. This is especially true in families in the immigrant community.

Clearly I don’t pretend to be an expert on the subject of mental health, but it is easy to imagine that preventive treatment at an early age could be critical in reducing the severity of mental health issues in older children and adults. In training workshops I’ve attended, I’ve learned that it is possible that the need for mental health support could show up at any time in our adult lives, but often there were initial symptoms in childhood or adolescence. But if we don’t manage to have the children with these symptoms evaluated in a timely way, the value of the warning signs is lost, together with the opportunity for early intervention.