STAT (6/17) reports a person’s 18th birthday can be “what some mental health [professionals] know, anecdotally, as ‘the cliff,’ the cutoff at which teens with mental health conditions are flung into adulthood, often without any preparation for the challenges to care ahead.” Since “young adults are among the most at risk of major mental illness, but are among the least likely to get mental health care,” according to experts, this “is a huge, pressing problem.” When “STAT spoke with teenagers, young adults, and mental health [professionals], and experts across the country to understand the experiences of young people with mental health conditions as they transition from adolescence to adulthood,” some “young people said no one prepared them for the often-complicated reality of navigating mental health care in adulthood: finding a therapist, filling prescriptions, scheduling appointments, shelling out co-pays.”
Related Links:
— “Facing a broken mental health system, many U.S. teens fall off a dangerous ‘cliff’ in their care, “Megan Thielking, STAT, June 17, 2020