DHS hosts Wisconsin Children’s System of Care Summit

WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAW) - Kids are speaking up and people are listening at the Wisconsin Children’s System of Care Summit hosted by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.

The main discussion is about how to improve health, specifically mental health and physical health for our youth including funding, knowing possible danger signs, and being aware of what’s going on in children’s lives.

Mental health awareness has been growing in the world. Gov. Tony Evers has made it a mission to improve mental health across the board through his recent budget as well. Those working with youth know this and want help in any way they can.

“From a parent’s point of view, we’re starting to be valued a lot more for our experience. We do know our kids, we are the experts on our kids and that is valuable when it comes time for medication, psychological therapy, anything like that,” said parent Robert Kaminski.

Kaminski often talks to his kids about mental health and how they feel. They’re eager for this new path, but there’s still more to be done.

“They’re also talking a lot about how medicine has affected them, how a lot of the times the medicines do make them feel very dumb and make it feel more isolating than they already are,” added Kaminski.

While everyone at the event was adults, it’s the youth who are taking over.

“I was on an access work group with ‘Office of Children Mental Health’ and one of the things that we developed was a crisis card and that came from the youth voice,” said Kaminski.

The Hmong population in Wausau is large and continues to grow. Maliya Xiong is a Project Manager for the Wisconsin United Coalition of Mutual Assistance Association, or WUCCMA. She speaks with Hmong children and understands they want to see immigrant representation.

“It’s so important for them to see visibility in positions of influence, in positions of creating new programming that really reflects like their identity, what they value, how they connect with each other,” said Xiong.

The goal of the event is not to figure it all out. It’s to do what they have been doing, providing support. “We have to learn from them. So I would say they’re definitely outside the box when it comes to typical, conventional methods of figuring out mental health needs,” said Xiong.

Community leaders also hope to teach kids overall empowerment and inform them about what resources are right for them.