An estimated 140,000 children in
Massachusetts are in need of mental healthcare, with 100,000 unable or
too afraid of stigmatization to receive help.

The Nov. 5 event
served as a collaboration between the city's Making Connections mental
health campaign and the state-wide The Time is Now Children's Mental
Health Campaign, which stopped here as part of several regional forums
held across Massachusetts.

At the meeting were calls for
advocacy mixed with stories from parents affected by authorities'
inability to properly address their children's health needs.

One
mother recounted her struggle against a local school system to keep her
child in school despite a behavioral and emotional disorder. Due to her
child's acting-out behaviors, she was expelled from school and daycare
programs without getting help for the underlying issues. After being
rejected from various programs and landing in a hospital, she said her
7-year-old daughter said she wanted to kill herself.

Her case, she said, highlighted the need for sweeping changes.

"We can't tinker around the edges," the mother said. "We really have to think hard about reform."

Another
young Somerville resident expressed frustration that his friend had
been thrown in jail after reaching his 20s without ever having received
attention for mental health issues that had been present for years.

"I
can't help my own best friend," he said. "Tons of crimes are committed
because of mental (issues) and the help people aren't getting. I'm
asking for help."

Matt Noyes, a representative from Health Care
for All who helped organize the forum, spoke of the need for more
legislation from Beacon Hill to help buoy the 2008 legislation, An Act
Relative to Children's Mental Health, meant to reform children's mental
healthcare.

Noyes urged parents to send postcards to their
representatives in support of An Act for Coordination of Children's
Mental Health Services, which would allow mental health clinicians to
bill private insurance for time spent coordinating a child's care with
collateral contacts such as parents, doctors and teachers.

Massachusetts
currently houses several large mental health state agencies, but Noyes
said they are often unable to work together. The campaign's new
legislation calls for the commissioner of the Massachusetts Department
of Health to take the lead in coordinating them.

Noyes also
addressed the stigma associated with mental illness, which he said has
held back the cause as other health issues continue to receive
attention both from the public and legislatures.

"If you had
diabetes, you would not hesitate to get treatment, with or without
insurance," Noyes said. "The brain is part of our body. We need to
raise awareness of the validity of mental health as just as serious as
other physical illnesses … We shouldn't be ashamed."

Anne
Herzberg, an English Language Learners counselor at Somerville High
School, said the school is doing its best with the resources it has.

"The
school's responsibility is to provide skills to promote life-long
success," she said. "Of course, when a parent comes forward asking for
more help, the school will try to help, but there are limitations."

"A lot of students are slipping not because they aren't asking," she added, "but because they get lost in the shuffle."

Tom Nash contributed to this report.