Parents, teens, advocates and providers share their horror stories about the lack of a system for children's mental health care

In “Darkest Hours: The Crisis in Children’s Mental Health Care,” parents, teens, advocates and providers all share their horror stories about the lack of a system for children’s mental health care. While the documentary focuses on Connecticut, this is a national crisis: kids spending night after night in the emergency room because of the lack of psychiatric beds in the state; waits of up to six months to get an appointment with a psychologist because of escalating demand; families dealing with managed care companies that continually deny coverage for necessary treatment. All of this - combined with the raw emotion of accepting the fact that their child is mentally ill and will likely face a lifetime of medication and therapy.

Darkest Hours

What's This?

What's This?

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Darkest Hours

Release Year: 2007

Duration: 56 min

Availability: Worldwide

Related: Science & Nature

In “Darkest Hours: The Crisis in Children’s Mental Health Care,” parents, teens, advocates and providers all share their horror stories about the lack of a system for children’s mental health care. While the documentary focuses on Connecticut, this is a national crisis: kids spending night after night in the emergency room because of the lack of psychiatric beds in the state; waits of up to six months to get an appointment with a psychologist because of escalating demand; families dealing with managed care companies that continually deny coverage for necessary treatment. All of this - combined with the raw emotion of accepting the fact that their child is mentally ill and will likely face a lifetime of medication and therapy.

Producer

Christina DeFranco

Photography by

Gregg Monte

Editor

Mark Ciesinski

Post Production by

Time Code Editing

Special Thanks

Time Code Editing

Virginia Fisher

Morgan Meltz