When 15-year-old Heather King was diagnosed with bipolar
disorder, her mother, Wanda Yanello, was caught in a bind: She had
no insurance and couldn’t afford the treatment. Meanwhile, Heather
stopped coming home and was raped on the streets. Desperate for an
answer, Yanello had her arrested the next time Heather took the car
out, hoping that the juvenile justice system could provide Heather
with the mental health attention she needed.
But as Anne-Marie Cusac reports in The Progressive,
the result may have been more damaging than doing nothing at all.
Heather has yet to receive any treatment for her mental disorder,
even though her mother has repeatedly tried to tell the facility of
her daughter’s condition.
‘No one will listen to Wanda Yanello because, in having her child
arrested, she effectively gave up custody of her daughter to the
juvenile justice system,’ Cusac writes. ‘Until Heather is released,
Yanello has no say in her treatment.’
Unfortunately, Yanello is not a rare case. Across the country many
parents are struggling to provide mental health care to their
children, and many have turned in desperation to the juvenile
justice system–a system that often doesn’t deliver.
–Sara V. Buckwitz
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