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Advocating For Your Child With a Psychiatric Disorder
- Get a comprehensive evaluation—a full assessment often involves several visits.
- Insist on the best—find out who in your community has the most experience and expertise in evaluating and treating your child’s particular condition.
- Ask lots of questions about any diagnosis or proposed treatment.
- Insist on care that is “family centered” and which builds on your child’s strengths.
- Ask about comprehensive “wrap around” or individualized services, geared specifically to the needs of your child and family.
- Keep record of evaluations, consultation and treatment reports, in an organized place.
- Feel free to seek a second opinion with another clinician.
- Help your child learn about his or her condition. Answer questions with honest, accurate and consistent information, but don’t overload children with more detail than they want or need.
- Know the details of your insurance policy, and learn about the laws governing insurance in your state.
- Work with the schools--ask to be included in any and all school meetings held to discuss your child and encourage school personnel to learn about childhood mental illnesses.
- Become politically active and teach your child about advocacy too.
- Fight stigma. Tell others that child psychiatric disorders are very real illnesses, they affect lots of kids and adolescents, but they are also quite treatable, especially if treatment begins early and is individualized to the needs of each child and family.
These tips were taken from a longer document written by Dr. David Fassler. A full transcript of this important piece is available here.
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