60 Minutes presented a remarkable segment on the topic of kids with mental illness in crisis.
I was searching online for the video earlier today and came across some additional footage the producers of the segment were unable to use in the segment. In this footage, Scott Pelley (the correspondent who presented the segment), the producers, and a group of mothers of children at Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital discuss the stigma of raising a mentally ill child…
Shortly after the 4:00 mark in this video, Scott tossed out this question…
SP: What is the difference between being the mother of a child who has mental illness and the mother of a child who has heart disease or cancer?
Mothers: Sympathy…empathy…empathy…casseroles.
SP: Casseroles? What do you mean?
Mothers: Somebody needs to share the casserole story.
My daughter, when she was thirteen was hit by a car and fortunately was fine, except for a very bad broken leg. The church organized a brigade of casserole makers, the neighbors brought casseroles, friends, families, everybody. Six months before that, Christina had spent two months on a psychiatric ward, and we had no casseroles. And I’m not blaming the church or the neighbors or anything…because of the stigma, we didn’t tell people.
We can’t allow the enemy to use the stigma of mental illness to keep families out of church! We, as church, also have a remarkable opportunity to share the love of Christ with many families who, because of stigma, may be too embarrassed to let us know when they are in need.
Here’s the entire segment…
Editor’s note: Originally published in 2014 under the title Casseroles, Church and the Stigma of Mental Illness…we were blocked from publicizing the article through Facebook because they considered the original title “offensive.”
Updated February 23, 2018
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Confused about all the changes in diagnostic terminology for kids with mental heath disorders? Key Ministry has a resource page summarizing our recent blog series examining the impact of the DSM-5 on kids. Click this link for summary articles describing the changes in diagnostic criteria for conditions common among children and teens, along with links to other helpful resources!
Church4EveryChild 
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