According to Cody Hauptman, a youth mental health advocate from Babylon, New York’s mental health system has failed young people with serious emotional and behavioral needs. Hauptman’s experience began at age 4 1/2 when anger outbursts started. Starting in pre-K, when he had crises, he was sent to hospitals by ambulance, and by age 7, police were handcuffing him and taking him to psychiatric hospitals—sometimes Stony Brook, sometimes South Oaks—more than a dozen times before age 10. After brief stays where specialists taught stress reduction strategies, he was sent home without access to the community-based services needed for transition.
Medicaid coverage sent respite workers to help during crises, but turnover was high and workers frequently quit or switched jobs. Without community-based supports, Hauptman could not stay home and required care at a residential treatment center. Few such centers exist on Long Island, so his school district found one in Brewster, upstate. After discharge in 2019, he faced months on waitlists for services back home.
On Long Island, about 3 in 4 Medicaid-eligible children who need community-based services aren’t receiving them. A report found Long Island needs almost 800 more behavioral health providers to fill the gap. Hauptman’s recovery came not through system improvements but through the consistency he gained during the COVID pandemic. Now 19 and living in Babylon, he works at the YMCA and is doing better.
“When you’re a kid and your mind isn’t right, it’s really scary. You just want to talk about it with someone you can trust,” he said. In 2022, Hauptman and his mother sued New York State alongside three other families for failing to provide mental health services to children on Medicaid. In January, they settled C.K. v. McDonald with the state, but Hauptman says he hasn’t yet seen improvements. Nonprofits delivering these services have called for $200 million in Medicaid funding to keep workers and serve more children.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.newsday.com/opinion/commentary/guest-essays/mental-health-long-island-youth-u2xff8sm