Access to mental health services: The struggle of poverty affected urban children of color

Counseling People Living in Poverty: The CARE Model

“…Despite the high rates of mental health problems manifested by many poor people in the United States, people living in poverty routinely underutilize counseling services that may be available to them and often prematurely terminate counseling when they do access such services (Coiro, 2001;Gonzalez, 2005).…”

“…Despite the need this population has for counseling services, the values, expectations, and requirements for participating in counseling may be at odds with the needs of many poor people. This is often the case because most traditional counseling models are more consistent with middle-class values than with values exhibited by poor people in U.S. society (Gonzalez, 2005;Javier & Herron, 2002). People struggling to have their personal and psychological needs met may find that the services provided by community mental health centers in general and professional counselors in particular do not meet these unique needs, nor do they honor the myriad strengths that are commonly manifested by many poor persons in society.…”

“…Some research suggests that people living in poverty are two times more likely than those of middle-class or upper-middle-class incomes to manifest psychological distress in their lives (Bruce, Takeuchi, & Leaf, 1991). Despite the high rates of mental health problems manifested by many poor people in the United States, people living in poverty routinely underutilize counseling services that may be available to them and often prematurely terminate counseling when they do access such services (Coiro, 2001;Gonzalez, 2005).…”

“…They may also have transportation problems. These and other basic barriers converge to make counseling attendance nearly impossible, which then results in unmet treatment needs (Gonzalez, 2005;Perese, 2007).…”

Use of Community and School Mental Health Services by Custodial Grandchildren

“…Predisposing factors reflect aspects that influence the inclination to use mental health services. Our model includes gender of grandchild, grandmother's race, and the age of both as predisposing factors, because access to mental health services and use of school mental health professionals by children in general varies significantly across these particular demographic variables (Burns et al, 1995;Gonzalez, 2005). On the basis of past studies with children in the general population, we hypothesized that those grandchildren who are male and of older age would be more likely to use mental health services (Brannan & Heflinger, 2005).…”