In addition to understaffing in schools, rarely do states require regular mental health screenings or fully leverage Medicaid dollars to fund certain services, according to the report card. States are also inconsistent in their teacher training and school climate requirements.
All of the above is problematic, as one in three high schoolers already reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness — a 40 percent increase from 2009. The pandemic has only exacerbated the problem, with more students experiencing trauma than before. From 2019 to 2020, the rate of mental health-related emergency department visits increased by 24 percent for children ages 5–11 and 31 percent for adolescents ages 12–15. About 7.7 million young people in the U.S. experience a mental health condition annually. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 24.
Despite how common mental health issues are in youth, many do not get the services they need, which can lead to worsened conditions that are harder to treat and to poorer life outcomes, explained Sharon Hoover, co-director of the National Center for School Mental Health and professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. However, children have better outcomes when they receive support early on.
“One of the most effective approaches to get youth the help they need is to meet them where they’re at — in schools — with comprehensive mental health systems … [that] work in partnership with youth, families and communities to promote a positive school climate, to help develop life skills, enhance knowledge of mental health, and to provide more intensive services for youth with greater challenges,” Hoover wrote. “School mental health services lower barriers to care and reduce inequities for underserved youth. We need to invest now in creating hopeful futures for our nation’s youth. States can take a critical step by adopting policies that support comprehensive school mental health systems.”
For each policy area, the scoring guide includes a policy goal and specific types of policies researched, as well as a scoring rubric with the criteria used to assign a score on a zero-to-three scale.
California currently excels in policies that support and enable schools to engage with families and community partners, as well as those that help support funding of school mental health services for Medicaid-eligible students.
The state scored low in several areas, but particularly in mental health staff-to-student ratios. For instance, California has one school psychologist for every 998 students (the recommended ratio is 1:500); one school social worker for every 6,132 students (the recommended ratio is 1:250); and one school counselor for every 612 students (the recommended ratio is 1:250). Policymakers can support schools’ abilities to hire additional staff by significantly investing in incentivizing careers in mental health and promoting telehealth partnerships, according to the report.
In December, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced a plan to recruit 10,000 new clinicians to provide mental health support in schools. The plan centers on offering scholarships to encourage candidates to pursue careers in the mental health profession and serve in high-need schools and communities. The scholarship and recruitment plan will be coupled with efforts to reduce delays in the time it takes for California mental health clinicians to become licensed.
“This proposal creates a needed career pathway to provide California students with the counselors they need to overcome the trauma of the pandemic,” said Christine Stoner-Mertz, CEO of the California Alliance of Child and Family Services (California Alliance), a coalition of nearly 160 community-based organizations that provide school-based mental health services. California Alliance helped to develop the concept and will co-sponsor the legislation to invest up to $25,000 per applicant in scholarships for future clinicians.