Director Hopes Disturbing Film Will Lead to Better MH Care for Children

After a Washington, D.C., showing of the documentary film “If I Could” (Original article: see story above), the mental health problems that James Marasco, an adolescent who is the film’s subject, continues to experience were the topic for a panel discussion on the state of mental health services for troubled youth.

Tracy Marasco, James’s mother, and Bob Burton, founder of the program Vision Quest, joined a panel moderated by psychiatrist Deborah Peel, M.D., president of the National Coalition of Mental Health Professionals and Consumers.

Among the participants were mental health experts and others dedicated to ensuring access to better mental health care for youth and their families, including Ivan Walks, M.D., chief health officer of the District of Columbia; Harold Eist, M.D., a past APA president; Timothy Roche, southern bureau chief of Time magazine; Emily Brown, L.C.S.W., director of Key Bridge Therapy and Mediation Center; Andrea Karfgin, Ph.D., psychologist and consultant for “If I Could”; and Patti O. White, the film’s writer, director, and producer.

“If I Could” had its commercial debut at the Seattle International Film Festival a year ago, where the film was third runner-up for best documentary. The film has also garnered awards at the New York International Independent Film Festival, the WIN Femme Film Festival in Los Angeles, and the Columbus Film and Video Festival.

The film made its unofficial debut as a fundraiser for the Anne Arundel County, Md., Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). The event raised $70,000 to benefit the violence-prevention programs of the YWCA.

The Washington, D.C., screening marked the first time that a panel of mental health experts joined to discuss the crisis with the mental health system that moved White to make the film in the first place.

“I realized that families with children who have undergone abuse or abandonment really have no voice,” said White, who noted that many youth often end up in any number of mental health systems that don’t communicate with one another and, as a result, receive inconsistent care. “I also made the film to help the average audience to understand what it is like for families who experience these problems.”

The film cost about $650,000 to produce, and donations from an anonymous actress, an independent investor from Denver, and AT&T covered half of this sum. White said she remained hopeful that another corporation or investor would express an interest in sponsoring the remaining costs. An unrestricted educational grant from Pfizer financed the cost of the screening at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in D.C.

To reach a wider audience, White would like to sell her film to local and independent public broadcasting stations nationwide, and she also has plans to sell a videocassette of the film.

Marasco explained that in the year or so since filming ended, James has been struggling, often unsuccessfully, with his mental disorder.

Vision Quest released James back to his home and community, with a guarantee that the Colorado mental health system would have five supports in place for James—school, family therapy, drug treatment, weekly urinalysis, and an ankle bracelet to monitor his whereabouts. State mental health officials agreed to these conditions, and James came home.

It turned out that “not one thing was in place,” Marasco said. “James sat at home and was not allowed in public school for six weeks, because the state was reviewing his file. He came home in good shape, but deteriorated because there was nothing there for him.”

Marasco hopes the film reaches a wide audience so that more people will join her fight for reform of the mental health system.

“It is very important for our nation to understand what trauma is and to stop labeling children with different diagnoses instead of relating to them as human beings or trying to understand where they are coming from,” she said.

Panelist Ivan Walks, M.D., a psychiatrist who is chief health officer and director of the Department of Health in Washington, D.C., said he too takes issue with the way traumatized children are treated in this country. “It bothers me that we keep diagnosing children instead of environments,” he said.

Children with serious and persistent mental health problems should have to go no further than their own backyards to find help, he stated. “We need to stop pretending that the way to fix a child is to send him or her to the place where they ‘fix’ children. In D.C., if your child is a fire setter or a sexual offender, the place he or she is sent to get ‘fixed’ is far away.”

Panelist and family therapist Emily Brown, L.C.S.W., agreed that a fragmented mental health system doesn’t work for children. A past president of the Greater Washington D.C. Coalition for Mental Health Professionals and Consumers, she said she watched as the Montgomery County, Md., mental health system became privatized and put up for bids. “No private group will bid on treating families with adolescents,” she said. “Schools are being used to treat children with mental health problems.”

Brown said that, ideally, children should have a continuum of mental health programs at their disposal.

How can quality mental health programs for children become a reality? Former APA President Harold Eist, M.D., said that people who care about children should back politicians who care about children.

“One politician, with the stroke of a pen, can do more good work than all of us, working all our lives, can do for the children of America,” he emphasized, “and one politician, with the stroke of a pen, can do more harm than all of us can repair to the children of America.”

Marasco agreed. “I know many parents who have the same problems that I have had [with the mental health system], and I tell them, ‘You can’t just sit around and complain; you have to do something about it. Become an active voter.’

“I won’t stop,” said Marasco tearfully. “James isn’t the only one in this situation, and everybody deserves a chance.”

More information about “If I Could” is available on the Web at www.ificouldmovie.com. ▪