She has worked as a psychiatric registered nurse for more than 20 years, licensed in Connecticut, Alaska, and Virginia. While most of her nursing practice has been in inpatient child and adolescent psychiatric facilities, she has worked with children and families in clinics and religious organizations, as well.
Deborah holds an associate's degree in nursing, a bachelor's degree in psychology, and has done graduate work in child welfare. She is currently working on a master's degree in psychology. Additionally, in the mid-1980s, she took religious education courses at Hartford Seminary and became a certified Christian Educator with the United Church of Christ.
Deborah spends her time writing, reading, advocating for children, and enjoying time with friends and family. She enjoys learning about American history and playing with her cat, Chessie. She uses her spare time to research and discover her family history.
She is a member of the American Psychiatric Nurses' Association (APNA), the International Society of Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurses, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Cambridge Who's Who, and First Families of Tennessee.
Deborah answers the following questions for those wondering about why she wrote The Forgotten Future:
WHAT IS YOUR BOOK ABOUT?
The Forgotten Future allows readers a peek behind the doors of a locked psychiatric unit for adolescents and provides insight into what life inside an acute psychiatric hospital is really like, for the patients and for the staff. It tells the stories of some of the troubled teens with whom I have worked in Connecticut, Alaska, and Virginia. The stories are all true, although I have placed all of the patients into a composite hospital which I have called “Oak Haven”. The book is reader-friendly as it tells the stories of adolescents suffering from a variety of mental disorders and explains many of the unit rules and actions of the staff. It also demonstrates the dangers of physical and mechanical restraints as I tell of the death of one of my patients who died during such a restraint. As an assist to parents, The Forgotten Future provides appendices with resources and important information about how, when, and where to seek help for troubled children, as well as specific questions to ask of providers and mental health facilities
WHY DID YOU WRITE THIS BOOK?
Twenty percent of the children under the age of 18 in the United States have mental illnesses, and between six and nine million of those children have a serious emotional disturbance. Each year, hundreds of thousands of these children and adolescents are confined to inpatient psychiatric hospitals, residential treatment centers, therapeutic foster homes, treatment academies, and behavioral boot camps. After having worked with children and adolescents in the mental health field for more than twenty years, I have come to believe that despite those extraordinary numbers, many of our children are not receiving optimal treatment for their mental health issues. I wrote The Forgotten Future: Adolescents in Crisis to provide an unprecedented insider’s look into a system which has serious inadequacies and to raise the question, “Can’t we do better by our children?”
WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR INSPIRATION?
I got my inspiration from the any children I have worked with over the years.
HOW DOES YOUR BOOK DIFFER FROM OTHERS THAT ARE SIMILAR?
I always say that my book is no “Girl Interrupted”. Mine is better. It is contemporary, whereas Girl Interrupted was published 25 years after it reportedly took place (1967). Also, The Forgotten Future focuses on many young people from diverse backgrounds, rather than on one individual. Today’s hospital stays are shorter and the development and use of medications has increased substantially. The number of young people involved in the mental health and juvenile justice systems have also increased, so the entire picture of mental health care for young people is very different from that of 40 years ago.
BUY IT NOW! The Forgotten Future: Adolescents in Crisis (ISBN: 9781432719357) by Deborah Clark Ebel, R.N., is now available. Order it at Barnes and Noble.com, Amazon.com, or your favorite online bookseller. You can also special order The Forgotten Future at your favorite neighborhood book store.
A portion of the author's earnings from all retail sales of The Forgotten Future will be donated to the National Children's Advocacy Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
This page was last updated: 06/29/2008
