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Virginia should provide seriously disturbed children and teenagers with the help they need; when they need it; where they need it - at home, if possible; and in a "culturally competent," "family focused" way.

It's a short list, and Margaret Crowe, policy director of Voices for Virginia's Children, can tick off the items with the rapid-fire speed that comes with familiarity. She and others in a state work group that looked at deficiencies in mental health services for children and adolescents issued their report recently. In short, Virginia, "We don't do a very good job of intervening early."

The findings are no surprise. But they are important, nonetheless, as part of a self-examination by the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services.

The work group was one of several that state Commissioner James Reinhard set up with an eye to reforming the far-ranging services his department is charged with delivering in different settings to people with widely different needs.

Reinhard is committed to changing an outdated, inefficient system still struggling, lo these many decades, to evolve from a heavy reliance on institutions to community-based care.

As director of state-run Catawba Hospital in Roanoke County, his job before landing in Richmond, Reinhard had a reputation for working well with community-based programs, public and private service providers, consumers and advocacy groups. His considerable skills offer grounds for hope of reform.

The children and adolescent work group's study offers reminders of why reform must come.

A fault in the state's Comprehensive Services Act, for example, makes some supportive families have to choose between keeping custody of troubled children or acquiring for them the publicly funded services they need.

The lack of something as basic as uniform mental health benefits for low-income children threatens the continuity of their care: Seasonal workers might ping-pong between Medicaid and FAMIS, with different providers and benefits.

Virginia needs one, comprehensive system to help families help children at the first sign of emotional problems. Long waits for services, or lack of services at all, hurt the children, hurt their families - and, in the long run, hurt the taxpaying public.

How much costlier it is all around when parents cannot find help for troubled children, who end up in court.