Troubled Kids Need Our Help

The case for improving Ventura County’s mental health care facilities for young people could hardly be made more dramatically than in the scene that played out Jan. 10 at Hueneme High School. A 17-year-old with a long history of mental illness brought a gun onto the campus, grabbed a student hostage and refused to let her go until a police marksman killed him.

As shocking as it was, that incident came as no surprise to those who work with the county’s most troubled youths. With a critical lack of residential facilities for these kids, far too many of them end up in juvenile hall--which is neither designed nor staffed for the demanding challenge of helping them.

A report by staff writer Tina Dirmann in today’s Times reveals that about half of the 130 children who pass through the county’s juvenile hall on an average day are afflicted with some level of mental illness. A third of them regularly see staff psychologists; about 20% take psychotropic drugs to help keep them stable.

Remarkably, experts largely agree on what is needed: more residential treatment facilities specializing in mentally ill children with severe behavioral disorders. But although the county is beginning to build a new juvenile justice center, no new treatment centers are planned.

We urge that this need be addressed as the county builds its much-needed housing unit for the mentally ill on Lewis Road near Camarillo. At present, none of its 190 beds is intended for children. Supervisor Frank Schillo, who heads a committee guiding that project, says the Hueneme High incident may change that.

That would be a start. Also needed are reinforcements for counselors who are overwhelmed by the need for their services. Fourteen psychologists provide counseling for the juvenile hall, work on a 24-hour crisis team and staff the county’s only 45-bed residential program for adjudicated adolescents, Frank A. Colston Youth Center. They are also responsible for treating court dependents who are not in trouble with the law.

It’s a bad idea all around to leave it to the criminal justice system to cope with young people whose mental problems produce troublesome, even violent behavior. It wastes resources better used to combat other types of crime. It leaves the community at risk of flare-ups like the incident at Hueneme High. And it causes too many young lives to veer off into a hell of courtrooms and prisons when the right type of help at the right time could have steered them onto a happier, more productive path. For proof, look no further than the teenager slain at Hueneme High.

“There are about a dozen kids just like this that we see everyday,” Miles Weiss, supervising deputy district attorney for juvenile prosecutions in Ventura County, told The Times. “This county is letting those kids down.”

We urge the county to add some juvenile beds to the Lewis Road facility and to find ways in the next budget to give higher priority to this critical need.