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Responding to clamoring from parents, and dreadful stories of youth suicide and hospitalizations, leaders in both parties convey an increasing sense of urgency to address epidemic levels of teenage anxiety, depression, loneliness and lashing out. About two dozen governors described teenage mental health as a crisis during their state of the state addresses this year and proposed budgets that would expand treatment options. The need is glaring; the pandemic supercharged trend lines that have grown worse as America's social fabric has been pulled at the seams and social media has grown ubiquitous.
Leaders across the ideological spectrum are surging resources into expanding access to mental health care for kids, especially those who lack strong family support systems. It's essential to create sturdy lifelines that students know about and can grab hold of when a crisis develops. Many places are scaling up or replicating programs that show promise. But the nation's leaders are behind; even as they acknowledge the problem, there is a vast number of difficult-to-solve issues -- such as onboarding enough mental health professionals and responding to the nation's deepening cultural decay -- after they have already become major problems. The country's leaders should make this a long-term commitment, even as federal relief dollars dry up.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior Survey shows 42 percent of high school students report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness and 22 percent say they seriously considered attempting suicide in 2021. It's much worse among girls.
IMatterColorado.org offers six free mental health consultations for every student in the state, with the promise of confidentiality. The SafeUT app allows any Utah student to immediately, and anonymously, contact a mental health professional. Children can also report friends struggling with suicidal thoughts or who might bring guns to school. Several other states are looking into requiring student identification cards to include a phone number for children and teenagers to call if they're in crisis.
Federal funding has made much of this investment possible, including the continuing build-out of the 988 suicide prevention hotline. State and local officials used pandemic relief funds and grants under the American Rescue Plan specifically for teen mental health. The bipartisan gun control bill that passed after last year's elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, includes $1 billion in grants for K-12 schools to combat mental illness. President Biden's recent budget proposal calls for $428 million in additional grants.
Even if Congress approves that request, which it should, the federal spigots are starting to slow.
Another problem is that mental health professionals are in short supply because of low pay and high burnout. No appointments are available in many places and sometimes insurance won't cover care. Many kids suffer in silence, and their illness gets worse when it goes untreated.
Making more counselors available to children is an important step, as are many of the varied ways in which state leaders have responded to the teen mental health crisis. But these will not address all the root causes. It's fair to expect the severity of this crisis to recede as more time passes post-pandemic. But the nation also needs to look upstream to counter the poisons making youngsters feel so sad, hopeless and inclined to self-harm.
* Guest editorial excerpt by The Washington Post.