Wednesday, Apr 08, 2009

TTT APRIL 8: MENTAL HEALTH CUTS and SOMALI AUTISM

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Download this episode (59 min)
Mental health advocatesand service providers cringe at what budget cuts portend for their charges - as if the stigma of mental illness isn't enough to create political antipathy. Anyone who gets around these cities can see the fruits of mental illness in a wide variety of societal outcasts – rage, drug use, homelessness, and crimes for which their mental illness is no defense.

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) released a lengthy study March 31 on the baffling and disproportionate rates of autism among Somali children in Minnesota. Can there be any doubt that environmental degradation throughout our life systems is ravaging the immune systems of our children. Asthma, autism, ADD and who knows what else are found in clusters across the Metro, but especially in core areas of our cities where immigrants are proving to be the clearest bellwether for the epidemic proportions of children's maladies. What is happening to these babies among Somali families?

GUESTS MENTAL HEALTH BUDGETS AND THEIR IMPACTS • STATE SEN. LINDA BERGLIN, Chair of the SenateHealth and Human Services Budget Division of Finance •SUE ABDERHOLDEN, Executive Director, NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness MN) •JOAN WHITE, Program Officer for PEOPLE INCORPORATED, a mental health delivery organization with homes and services provided to hundreds of mentally ill residents. SOMALI CHILDREN AND AUTISM •IDIL ABDULL- Parent Advocate and Co-founder, Somali-American Autism Foundation •ANNE HARRINGTON- Autism Consultant and Advocate; former Early Childhood teacher/evaluator, Minneapolis Public Schools; Mother of child with autism •SARAH THORSON, Supervisor, Minnesota Children with Special Health Needs, MINNESOTA DEPT. OF HEALTH •ABDI AYNTE- BBC America reporter; former Twin Cities reporter covering the Somali autism issue.

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