There is a robust national conversation about the rights of minors in a number of situations. Here, in North Carolina, lawmakers are pursuing legislation to restrict the rights of minors in favor of increased parental rights, especially in the area of “emotional disturbance,” in legislative-speak.
This WRAL-TV article does an excellent job describing the complexities and controversy.
Parents of children experiencing mental health crises are not unfamiliar with this issue. There does not seem to be a standard, at least in NC, of how these rights are distributed between parents and youth. Nor does there appear to be a standard “age of consent,” with various agencies and institutions using policy to determine when parents stop having access to their children’s issues.
While not a blanket statement, I am generally in favor of parents having full consent and knowledge of their children’s health issues until they are 18.
My view comes primarily from our experience with the issue. As parents of children who have a long, documented history of mental health and psychiatric challenges, it is of the utmost necessity to have the full picture of their symptoms, struggles and diagnoses in order to best advocate and create a care plan for them.
I’m not blind to the fact there are children/youth coming from hard spaces where parents may not have their best interest at heart. For those youth, they need to be able to reach out for help without fear of reprisal. I’m not sure what the right answer is.
About 18 months into one of our children’s mental illness journeys, we had a particularly rough crisis episode. The circumstances, and law, dictated in this case that we had to work with the magistrate to have our son involuntarily committed for the safety of others. When this happens, the magistrate determines the medical facility the child is sent to for evaluation.
In this case, it was a hospital we were not familiar with. They had a strict policy of youth over 13 being in control of their own health care matters. When I arrived, I was not allowed to see him, as he did not give consent. I was only allowed to give very generally details of his history and condition. I was not privy to his treatment plan or the doctors approach to evaluation.
The next morning, we were absolutely shocked to get a call to come and pick him up. He was “stay,” said the doctor, again refusing to have a conversation beyond communicating facts about his stay. Those facts, included the first mention of a new diagnosis based upon the magistrate’s report and some unknown (to us) elements of the evaluation.
We asked for his health records from the visit and were denied because he didn’t consent. This consent was denied despite the fact that he experienced an episode of psychosis and was temporarily incapable of competent decision making.
Why does this matter? Eighteen months into a very complex mental illness journey with more than a dozen hospitalizations and crisis evaluations, we are still, a year-plus later, left with a critical gap in his healthcare record. Part of this is due to the severity of this specific episode and part of it is due to our sons inability to accurately relay what was discussed with him during that evaluation.
This opinion post is by Andrew Sawyer, Director SHHIP and does not neccesarily reflect the thoughts of all SHHIP volunteers and clients.
shhip.net 