Mental health care worries linger 5 years after Sandy Hook
HARTFORD, Conn. — Anguished mothers with mentally ill children have sought out Liza Long for help ever since she wrote an essay, “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” comparing experiences with her son to the emotionally troubled 20-year-old who carried out the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
The massacre sounded alarms nationally about gaps in mental health care and led to calls for better screening and services, especially for young people showing a propensity for violence, but some key reforms enacted in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting depend on funding that has yet to be delivered by Congress. And Long still hears almost daily from families overwhelmed by their children’s behaviours and struggling to get treatment.
“We’re still not seeing the health access, the access to mental health care,” said Long, an Idaho mother of four and community college instructor who credited her essay with attracting the attention of a physician who correctly diagnosed and treated her then-13-year-old son for bipolar disorder.
Like other mass shootings before and since, the tragedy prompted calls for tighter controls on guns and improved mental health treatment. Five years later, mental health care providers are waiting for promised boosts in funding, and many families are still battling insurance companies to cover their children’s services.