Across the United States and in Minnesota, mental health care needs of school age children are rising exponentially, and families seeking services and supports face sometimes impossible barriers to accessing the clinical mental health care their children desperately need.

 

Solutions are in reach, but we have lost much time, and our communities have suffered. Students have lost ground, experiencing setbacks in mental health and academic performance.
 

The mental health crisis spans all age groups but increasingly is hitting young people, a group that was suffering more problems even before the COVID-19 pandemic, said Dr. Katarzyna Litak, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the University of Minnesota. ….The federal government's biennial Youth Risk Behavior Survey, released in February [2023], found a record 57% of female high school students in 2021 reporting persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the previous year. A decade earlier, the rate was 36%. While the rates were lower for male high school students, they are also increasing over time. … Thirty percent of females said they had seriously considered attempting suicide, up from 19% in 2011.

https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-mental-health-care-crisis-bed-shortage-low-reimbursement/600258431/  Christopher Snowbeck, March 23, 2023

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Challenging but surmountable barriers such as these often keep children from mental health services they need:

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Financial Barriers mean that many families simply cannot afford the costs of clinical mental health services that are not covered through state or county, or other low-cost or free programs.

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Access barriers resulting from the lack or nonexistence of providers can force families to wait as long as two years to be seen by an appropriate mental health care provider, and many providers are not accepting new patients at all. The problem is exacerbated in less densely populated areas where affordable or appropriate services may not exist within a family’s community.

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In Minnesota, there was a 30 percent increase from 2020 to 2021 in emergency room visits for mental health concerns in the school age demographic... Professionals say the pandemic has exacerbated a strained situation into a crisis. “[In the U.S.] we don’t have a fully functioning mental health system. We have a patchwork of spots here and there of mental health services,” says George Dubie, psychologist and chief executive officer of Greater Minnesota Family Services. https://www.womenspress.com/in-rural-minnesota-kids-lack-mental-health-care/ Feven Gerezgiher 01/27/2022

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Logistical barriers can make it very  challenging, even impossible, to physically get kids to providers. Children need to be in school, and parents need to be at work. To get children to daytime appointments, parents must leave work, pick up their child from school, bring them to the appointment, bring them back to school, and return to work… and this presumes accessible transportation and the parent's ability to get leave from work.

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Each of these barriers will be addressed, at least in part, by the passing of the Medicaid Reimbursement bill, which will unlock the flow of millions of federal dollars to public school districts across MN that will directly enable schools and districts (through reimbursement for services) to provide appropriate mental health supports to students:

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1. At no cost to families,

2. Where children are - in school,

3. While they are already there, and

4. With a trusted, licensed provider already known to the student and family.