Families hope Hochul’s $1B plan can fix broken system
David Robinson – Rockland/Westchester Journal News | USA TODAY NETWORK – in the D&C on 1/21/23 on page A1.
An emotional mix of guilt, shame and fear gripped Sara Taylor each time she considered calling police to help resolve her 11-year-old daughter’s mental health crisis. As a Black woman, she knew responding officers may hold some form of racial bias and be ill-equipped to handle the high-stakes interaction at their Rochester home.
But Taylor had no choice, she said, because New York’s mental health system had failed them.
Cycling in and out of psychiatric emergency rooms, they often spent hours awaiting a doctor’s evaluation, only to be dismissed as a behavioral issue and sent home to await the next crisis.