Some wards of the state end up in psychiatric hospitals like Chicago Lakeshore Hospital. Over the years, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has made great strides in finding homes for abandoned, neglected and traumatized kids.
From their modest home in Ingleside, Ill., Toni and Jim Hoy draft a letter to their son, Dan. He last lived with them three and a half years ago.Dan and his brother Christian are adopted.
According to the latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 15 percent of Latino youth in the United States have considered attempting suicide. By comparison, rates for black and white youth were 13 percent.
WBEZ's Out of the Shadows series looked to identify some factors that could exacerbate mental illness in teens--among them, sexuality. Straight or gay, coming to terms with one's sexuality is one of the biggest hurdles a teenager crosses.
Over time, society improved the way it understands and treats mental illness, but long-standing stigma can still be heard in everyday casual language. The stigma is heard in words like crazy, nutty, unbalanced or delusional.
Parents have few options once mentally ill children become unmanageable at home. And there are even fewer choices if families can’t afford intensive therapy.
Eight Forty-Eight wondered if the experience of the McGriff family, featured in WBEZ's Erica Hunter's report for Out of the Shadows, was an anomaly – or a typical scenario.
