Medical

Child Neglect accounts for the majority of referrals to child protective services. The prevalence of medical neglect, defined as the failure of a caregiver to provide appropriate health care to the child, is not easily estimated as the diagnosis is not straightforward as neglect occurs along a spectrum from grossly inadequate to optimal medical care.

by Kelechi Ubozoh, Communications Director for Peers Envisioning and Engaging Recovery Services (PEERS) When I was first diagnosed with depression, I was too young to understand what it meant. My parents had just gotten divorced, and I started seeing a child therapist to help me cope with the separation.

California has compensated several counties retroactively for expenditures on Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT), and is assuring counties that obligations under the federally mandated program have not been dropped in their laps.

Lead child welfare advocates in California fear that the state’s social services “Realignment,” the conversion of former state programs into a block grant for counties, will stunt the already-sluggish attempt to expand and improve mental health screening and treatment of foster youth and other poor children.