Mental Health Care System

The mental healthcare system in the United States is historically fractured. A "silo"-based foundation precludes correlation between varied and integral systems that, collectively, offer a range of services to treat the whole patient. The President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health roused the debate of the mental health community and rallied them around one goal: providing thorough, coherent, and appropriate treatment to Americans with mental health and substance abuse problems. Particularly needy for this form of collected care is one demographic in particular: teens dealing with drug abuse and alcohol problems. The substance-abusing teen is caught between many cracks: between child and adult, the mental health system and juvenile justice. The ever-developing mental healthcare system in the United States is restructuring to address this failure, approaching the teen from both SAMHSA and affiliated programs as well as through the Justice Department, using individual, family, and developmentally-appropriate...
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