Paul Gionfriddo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231168281
- eISBN:
- 9780231537155
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231168281.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Clinical Child Psychology / School Psychology
This book's author's son Tim is one of the “6 percent”—an American with serious mental illness. He is also one of the half million homeless people with serious mental illnesses in desperate need of ...
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This book's author's son Tim is one of the “6 percent”—an American with serious mental illness. He is also one of the half million homeless people with serious mental illnesses in desperate need of help yet underserved or ignored by the health and social-service systems of the United States. In this moving, detailed exposé, the book describes how Tim and others like him come to live on the street. The text takes stock of the numerous injustices that kept Tim from realizing his potential from the time Tim first began to show symptoms of schizophrenia to the inadequate educational supports he received growing up, his isolation from family and friends, and his frequent encounters with the juvenile justice system and, later, the adult criminal-justice system and its substandard mental health care. Tim entered adulthood with limited formal education, few work skills, and a chronic, debilitating disease that took him from the streets to jails to hospitals and then back to the streets.Less
This book's author's son Tim is one of the “6 percent”—an American with serious mental illness. He is also one of the half million homeless people with serious mental illnesses in desperate need of help yet underserved or ignored by the health and social-service systems of the United States. In this moving, detailed exposé, the book describes how Tim and others like him come to live on the street. The text takes stock of the numerous injustices that kept Tim from realizing his potential from the time Tim first began to show symptoms of schizophrenia to the inadequate educational supports he received growing up, his isolation from family and friends, and his frequent encounters with the juvenile justice system and, later, the adult criminal-justice system and its substandard mental health care. Tim entered adulthood with limited formal education, few work skills, and a chronic, debilitating disease that took him from the streets to jails to hospitals and then back to the streets.