Oregon Families Call for Radical System Reform, Not More of the Same 
(Please sign if you live in Oregon)

When I was able to safely use the phone to call the county crisis line there was no immediate danger, and so they told me they would not respond. My son was wrecking our house. He had hurt me and sent his sisters into a state of distress which would be visible for days. It was ongoing. Unrelenting. We were locked in a cycle of escalation and de-escalation but could not find a way to resolution. The police also hesitated. “There’s nothing we can do. We can’t use force on an 11-year-old…but you can.” I wondered for a minute how that would sit with a DHS investigator. I didn’t want anyone to use force. I didn’t want the police to come at all. I didn’t want this to be happening, but it was, and the designated helpers were telling me they could not help.

It started just after noon and would go on until well after midnight. More than 12-hours. Unsupported. It was not missed on me that in an acute care setting this would have spanned two shifts and would have been handled by at least a half-dozen staff. When a system lacks the resources to serve those for whom it exists, those for whom it exists live in peril.

As the parents of children and youth living with serious mental health challenges, variations on this story are familiar to many of us. For most of us it starts much smaller, with behavioral symptoms that are dismissed, explained away, treated punitively, and managed with a one-size-fits-all approach that doesn’t fit. Specialized services are available to a select few. Like an untreated wound that becomes infected, the lack of help at the start lends to a worsening of symptoms. It is as if the system is built to feed its limits. Now, the limits have been exceeded and we are existing in peril.

We have seen many of the letters addressing the children's system crisis from professional associations, providers, and state agencies. We appreciate their sense of urgency. We support all efforts to stabilize and reinvigorate the workforce. We stand with the acknowledgement articulated by OHA, ODHS, and ODDS in their letter of October 1, 2021, that “the current challenges go far beyond systems serving children and families [and that] solutions must not be considered in isolation.” Indeed, children and families must not be considered in isolation. We must be seen within the fullness of our surroundings, beliefs, cultures, challenges, and strengths.

While the pandemic has strained the system in ways that no one could have anticipated, many of the problems which have come to the surface have been cultivated over decades and across multiple changes in agency leadership. The current flourishing of disproportion, inaccessibility, system-induced trauma, denial, lack, and underfunding within the child-serving systems has been perpetuated by nothing more insidious than acceptance. It has been allowed to happen.

The negative stigma which surrounds mental illness has been deeply internalized within the helping systems. The effect is that children and families are kept locked away by a system that cannot see them holistically, denies self-determination, and defaults to blame. Investments in downstream services without concurrent attention to prevention and early signs and symptoms indicates a systemic resignation to crisis. Siloed systems defend themselves through finger pointing and passing the buck while children and families fall deeper into the gaps.

It has taken a pandemic to lift the veil on that which has been hidden in plain sight for decades. The problems will not be solved with more of the same. Meaningful systemic reform will require a radical transformation of business as usual, a commitment to financing, and robust standards of accountability.

“The current challenges go far beyond systems serving children and families [and] solutions must not be considered in isolation.” Families call for radical system reform, not more of the same!