The Foreign Service Journal, June 2016

50 JUNE 2016 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL the new RMO/P, who was willing to write him a single, 60-day prescription and said that my son would have to find a psy- chiatrist in the “local community” near his college to continue getting his medication, that MED should not be writing pre- scriptions for psycho-stimulants for him. We fully agreed that when our son completed college, he would need to find a local psychiatrist to take over his case. We hoped once he was out of an academic environment, he would not need to take such medication. (And this has been the case.) But at the point when he was cut off from prescriptions, he was a junior in college and not part of the local community. The college health unit did not normally take such cases, so it was problematic for my son to be “dropped” by the post health unit at this stage, with three more semesters to go. We were worried about him graduating. We had made a tremendous financial investment in his education, and we wanted to see him graduate successfully on time. We contacted MED in the State Department and explained that we were not looking for a “blank check,” but would like to see the post health unit pre- scribe and monitor for our son until he graduated from college. MED said no. Fortunately, the college health unit agreed to prescribe the medicine for him and monitor him until he graduated, so this worked out. But we remain aggrieved by MED and the post health unit’s precipitous and unempathetic treatment of our son. a Suicidal Teen A s a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) married to an FSO, I know how essential mental health care is for many people. We are at our first post. My teenage son became suicidal There is a growing perception from FS families that any indication of a mental health concern in a child is cause for immediate medevac. This funnels people directly into a hospital environment, which may not be the optimal setting for a juvenile or for the family. after we moved to post. He had a history of depression. The consulate leadership and regional psychiatrist worked quickly to connect us to SNEA, a resource to pay for education (in this case residential treatment with a school on site) for children of FS employees. Our son received much better care than we could have afforded on our own and is doing well at a private school that is also being funded by SNEA. One advantage is that we have access to excellent services in English for our son; SNEA paid for an educational consultant who helped us make sound choices. We did not, however, get much help before we arrived at post. Because our son had a history of depression, we had been required to obtain outpatient services for him in advance of moving here, which we did. However, the regional psychiatrist at that time had only one local referral on the U.S. side, and that person was no longer available. We had to find a therapist and psychiatrist on our own. We learned the hard way that we did not choose particularly well. I would recommend that the State Department hire or con- tract with local therapists or LCSWs to work in tandem with the RMO/Ps around the world, not just in hot spots. The therapists could offer individual, family and group services in person, trav- eling to various posts as nurses do, as well as through a secured Skype-type line. They could also make themselves familiar with local resources in their region. The department appears to recognize that supporting stable family life is critical to the overall mission of the Foreign Service. But it struggles to provide that support in concrete ways, includ- ing easily accessible mental health care and transition support for families. n