Safety net for mentally ill youth lacking, advocate says

"I sat down and cried, because we all knew this was going to happen," said Taycher, an advocate for Nevada children with disabilities and special needs. "We just don’t have a good safety net for kids who have mental health issues."

Taycher is the executive director of Nevada PEP, a nonprofit organization that assists parents of children with special needs, including those with mental disorders. She said Nevada offers few options for parents whose children act out violently because of a mental disorder.

Tanner Chamberlain, 15, was killed in a Sept. 29 confrontation with police while he was holding a knife near his mother’s throat at an east valley apartment complex. He was diagnosed as being bipolar when he was 14 and refused to take medication.

In Nevada, parents who face violent situations with mentally ill children have two choices: Take their child to an emergency room or call 911, Taycher said. "Neither of those options is an effective way to respond to a crisis or stabilize a crisis."

Taycher said Tanner’s single mother, Evie Oquendo, really had only one choice.

"It’s very difficult for a mother to physically restrain her grown son. Her only option was to call 911."

Oquendo told the Review-Journal that she pleaded with her son to let her drive him to a hospital. She said she didn’t call police because she was afraid they might shoot him.

A friend of Oquendo eventually called police. They arrived about 30 to 45 minutes after Tanner had trashed the family home.

Taycher also is a member of Clark County Children’s Mental Health Consortium, a group that assesses the mental health needs of juveniles and makes recommendations to state officials. A few years ago, she said there was a plan in place that could have helped meet the needs of mentally ill children.

During the 2007 Legislature, lawmakers approved a plan to finance a mobile crisis intervention program.

Taycher said the pilot program would have had on-call mental health specialists able to go to where children and teens were having breakdowns. In cases where children were violent, the mental health professionals would have assisted police in their interactions.

The pilot program was scrapped because of state budget cuts, Taycher said. According to the consortium’s plan, the program was pitched as a way to alleviate overburdened emergency rooms. That has been successful elsewhere.

According to the description of the plan, "Mobile crisis intervention services have been proven to significantly reduce the need for youth emergency room inpatient psychiatric hospitalization in communities across the nation."

Taycher said mental health experts have known for years that Southern Nevada needs such a service. "If we don’t develop something like that, we will continue to have these type of situations in our community."

Taycher said the Las Vegas police crisis intervention program has been an excellent way for officers to learn how to de-escalate incidents involving mentally ill children, but more must be done.

Las Vegas police wouldn’t speak about the department’s program, because the investigation into the Chamberlain shooting remains open.

North Las Vegas police officials last week were unavailable to speak about a similar program they have. Henderson police wouldn’t comment for this story.

Patricia Merrifield, a deputy administrator for children’s mental health with the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services, said five service centers in the county treated about 2,500 children and teens for a variety of disorders between July 1, 2008, and June 30, 2009.

Merrifield said the centers are open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. But she acknowledged professionals at the service centers are most likely unavailable after business hours. Parents facing emergencies when the centers are closed must call police for help.

The quickest response "is to call 911," Merrifield said.

Contact reporter Antonio Planas at aplanas@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638.