Kids often struggle to get mental health care

• Emily Previti/PA Post
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  Emily is a reporter for WITF who’s been covering voting and elections since July 2019 as part of her former role with statehouse accountability news organization PA Post. She was the senior reporter for statewide public media collaboration Keystone Crossroads. Previously, she covered city hall for PennLive/The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.), was a watchdog and city hall reporter at The Press of Atlantic City and reported for the Northwest Herald. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
  
  See other articles by Emily Previti for WITF.

 Brett Sholtis / WITF

Owen Wagner, left, smiles as he plays Mario Kart next to his mom, Gerren Wagner.

‘We feel marginalized’

Brett Sholtis / WITF

Owen Wagner, left, smiles as he plays Mario Kart next to his mom, Gerren Wagner.

• About 200 children and teens will lose behavioral health services when WellSpan Philhaven shuts its Harrisburg location this week — a development made more significant by Pennsylvania’s general dearth of behavioral health treatment providers. This story from Transforming Health reporter Brett Sholtis explains why the state’s so short on those medical professionals and explores how one one family will be affected by the Philhaven closure.

• WHYY’s Alan Yu talked to a military family with an autistic son for his story about a study that found children in military families have a harder time getting behavioral or mental health treatment.

• As it is, more than 40 percent of children nationally had trouble getting behavioral or mental health care, a recent survey found. This video from Transforming Health producer/host Keira McGuire offers some insight and possible solutions.

Best of the rest

Dan Gleiter / PennLive

Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale file photo taken June 12, 2015.

• More than 3,000 people have criminal records for things like unpaid library fines as the result of an Erie judge misclassifying civil matters, a recent audit found. State Auditor General Eugene DePasquale says the courts should expunge their records for free. DePasquale is also calling for the Office of Administrative Courts to adopt some new procedures — such as better training for district judges — to prevent similar problems in the future, PennLive’s Jan Murphy reports.

• Four children were separated from their parents by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in the Philadelphia area, the Associated Press reports. Two have since been reunited, but the others’ status is unclear — and Gov. Tom Wolf wants answers, the Associated Press reports.

• Starting in fall 2020, teens in Pennsylvania’s foster care system can attend any college or university in the state for free under a law signed earlier this summer. Maine, Maryland and Massachusetts also waive tuition for foster children, WPSU’s Steph Krane reports.