Kateri Whiteside looked at the pictures of her six kids on the wall: boys and girls, from toddlers to adults. She hasn't seen some of them for years.
Mental Health & Trauma
What if the United States treated child abuse and neglect as if they were deadly diseases?
A 5-year-old's long wait for care is emblematic of a much larger problem — too few mental health providers for low-income kids on public coverage.
Vigo County had the highest rate of child neglect investigations in the state in 2017 — 238 for every 1,000 kids, a Times analysis of child welfare data found.
Despite the chokehold heroin and pain pills have had on public health for years, Bakersfield cops are dealing with far more than opioids.
With an early $50 million in government funding, Tanti and his organization, Headspace, would spend the next decade creating a network of 100 mental health centers serving 355,000 people throughout the country, each one with its own personality.
Families seeking mental health support for children are beset on all sides by challenges, whether it's difficulty finding the right kind of help or finding out there is no help within 50 miles. Parents who are uninsured, on Medi-Cal or have commercial insurance face unique problems.
This story was produced as part of a larger project led by Kerry Klein, a participant in the USC Center for Health Journalism's 2018 Data Fellowship.
Other stories in this series include:
It Used To Be Kern County's Opioid Epicenter, But Oildale May Be Cleaning Up
A new study out this week shows the economic costs of untreated mood and anxiety disorders among moms exceeds $14 billion dollars through the first five years of a child's life.
"Ashanti Jones’ story was so overwhelming it made me cry during the interview — a first in my four-decade career," writes broadcast reporter Michael Hill.