It’s time to further invest in our state and our future; young Alaskans deserve better

Alaska needs to redirect its resources to improve home and community-based care in-state. It just makes sense that we need to provide care for Alaska’s children here in Alaska, and that long-term, children belong in homes with families, not in out of state facilities. We need to heed the advice of the world’s leading experts when it comes to long-term institutional care for children: don’t do it. An international panel of experts in pediatric health, development and mental health, set out to study the use of institutional care for children globally. Intending to develop recommendations for the improvement of institutional care for children, the Lancet Group Commission came to a decisive conclusion, published this month in “The Lancet Psychiatry” and “The Lancet, Child & Adolescent Health.”

Rather than work on improving institutional care for children, we need to abolish it.

Alaska is not exempt. We have a problematic history in Alaska with institutional care – for adults and children with mental health needs. The use of locked, out-of-state psychiatric institutional care for our children has been reduced, but not yet eliminated. And, in the long run, Alaska’s Medicaid system foots the bill for this institutional care.

While short-term, in-state use of these care settings may be necessary in some situations, long-term, institutions are a poor substitute for family and home living situations. The commission conducted a meta-analysis of hundreds of peer reviewed studies, and the findings were clear – institutional care is harmful to the physical, mental and emotional development of children and when children and adolescents remain in institutional care, they struggle to successfully transition to adulthood.

We need to double down our efforts to provide the behavioral health supports necessary for children to be successful in their homes. At Alaska Behavioral Health, I work with a team of dedicated mental health experts who provide support to children, youth and adults so that kids can stay in their homes, with their families.

Joshua Arvidson is a licensed clinical social worker. He works as a clinical director for child and family services at Alaska Behavioral Health.