June 3, 2024 Read Time:
LeadingLearningSharingMental Health
Today I am writing to ask for your help in creating a series of learning experiences to address the youth mental health crisis we are feeling here in Essex County, and around the country. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy addressed this in a 2021 advisory, pointing to alarming data, including that 1 in 3 high school students report persistent feelings of hopelessness. In Massachusetts, kids aged 3 to 17 saw a 50% increase in anxiety and depression diagnoses from 2016 to 2020.
Murthy and others have called for swift and comprehensive action, and here in Essex County, across Massachusetts, and around the country, efforts are underway to provide students with the support they need as quickly as possible. For example:
- In Essex County, the Nan Project recently hosted “Empowering Youth Voices,” a summit for teachers and students focused on strategies to better help young people and create a safe environment to talk about mental health in public schools.
- Several school districts in the Commonwealth currently offer students virtual access to mental health assessments, evidence-based therapy and medication evaluation through a partnership with Cartwheel Care. Other ECLC school districts have adopted the City Connects model of supporting students.
- The Brookline Center for Community Mental Health has just received $13 million in state and federal funding to support bryt program, which provides students with significant (Tier 3) mental health issues. Among the first to receive bryt funds are Everett High School, Lynn Vocational Technical Institute, and Malden High School.
- Nationally, 11 states are joining forces to recruit, train, and deploy the nation’s first Youth Mental Health Corps to help adolescents access mental health resources. The new Youth Mental Health Corps is a public-private collaboration that aspires to address the growing needs of young people while also creating career pathways to address the national shortage of mental-health professionals. Corps members will be trained as navigators serving middle and high school students in schools and in community-based organizations. We hope that Massachusetts will soon be added to this list.
We applaud these and other efforts, and believe that sustaining such good work requires mindset shifts that will take time and ongoing practice. This year, ECLC partnered with Community Catalyst, a national organization that advocates for equitable health care systems, to convene youth associated with Lynn Youth Street Outreach Advocacy (LYSOA) and student support professionals to discuss strategies to strengthen the Essex County wellness infrastructure.
Working separately, the student support professionals also collaborated on a proposed series of learning experiences for the 2024-2025 school year to boost the capacity of school and district staff across Essex County, and we want to know what you think about them. Please join us for an early dinner on Tuesday, June 18, from 3:30 – 5:30 pm at the Wylie Inn and Conference Center to offer your feedback and contribute your ideas. (Please see the flyer below to register.) This session is ideal for all who focus on student wellness, such as assistant principals, psychologists, school resource officers, school nurses, guidance counselors, social workers, and special educators. We hope you can join us.
