NEWS

Report: Wis. youths receive poor mental health care

Dee J. Hall

MADISON — Wisconsin youths have a higher suicide rate, more psychiatric hospitalizations and less access to mental-health care in school than children in many other states, according to the first report of the newly formed Office of Children's Mental Health.

The report lays out what many advocates already know: the state's county-run system of providing mental health care is fragmented, with children in some areas of Wisconsin receiving good care and others little to none.

According to the report, children in the state are significantly more likely to take their own lives than the national average, with a child suicide rate in 2012 at the highest level since at least 1999.

Many Wisconsin counties have few, if any, psychiatrists who treat children. A small poll of health-care providers in December found that when children are covered by Medicaid-funded health insurance such as BadgerCare — the primary funder of children's mental-health care in Wisconsin — 81 percent had trouble locating a psychiatrist to treat them.

For more of this story, visit the Wisconsin State Journal athttp://host.madison.com/wsj/.