Student-led network helps address shortage of mental health professionals in schools

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• Amna Nawaz:

  Mental health among the nation's student population has been a growing concern, especially coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many states are trying to make sure there are adequate resources for schools' needs.

  From PBS Wisconsin, Steven Potter reports on how peer support, school staff, and psychology researchers are trying to keep up with the growing rate of mental health issues among K-12 students in Wisconsin.

  It's part of our series Early Warnings: America's Youth Mental Health Crisis.

• Andy Farley, Principal, Brookfield East High School:

  I think every school principal would love to have more mental health professionals.

• Steven Potter:

  Despite having a handful of counselors, a school psychologist and a social worker on staff, Andy Farley, principal of Brookfield East High School, says they still have trouble meeting the mental health needs of their 1,400 students.

• Andy Farley:

  It's never going to be enough.

• Steven Potter:

  Farley knows firsthand how devastating student mental health problems can become. A few years back, a number of students at Brookfield East High School died from suicide.

• Andy Farley:

  Incredibly difficult, incredibly difficult at our school level, incredibly difficult at our community level. We all knew we had to do something.

• Steven Potter:

  They created a local chapter of the national, student-led mental health support network called the Hope Squad.

• Student:

  Does anyone want to share about some of the positives?

• Steven Potter:

  On a weekly basis, the school's 60 student members discuss new strategies to help their classmates stay mentally healthy, from the importance of getting enough sleep and social-emotional learning techniques to recognizing suicide warning signs.

  Brookfield East sophomore Ledra Ashenbrenner is a Hope Squad member.

• Ledra Ashenbrenner, Student:

  From a student standpoint, we are like the eyes and the ears of the school. We bridge the gap between students and counselors and teachers, because, like research has shown, students are more likely to go to their peers if they're having an issue that they need help with.

  Katie Eklund, University of Wisconsin-Madison: Twenty percent of kids have some type of behavioral or social-emotional concern.

• Steven Potter:

  Katie Eklund is a professor of school psychology at U.W.-Madison.

• Katie Eklund:

  But we know, out of that group, only 20 percent of those kids actually receive that support.

• Steven Potter:

  Eklund works to find solutions to the increasing rates of young children suffering from anxiety and depression, including those harming themselves or considering suicide.

• Katie Eklund:

  Unmet mental health concerns we see often by the time kids get to high school, we see kids not coming to school, we see lower grades, we see higher incidence in the juvenile justice system, and just lower, poor psychosocial outcomes throughout life.

• Steven Potter:

  Eklund says children aren't getting the help they need because of a shortage of mental health professionals such as therapists, counselors, and school psychologists.

  According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 70 percent of public schools say more students are seeking mental health services. but 87 percent of those schools say they can't provide such services to all of the students in need.

  Eklund and her colleagues, however, have a plan and new resources to address this shortage with a $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

• Katie Eklund:

  It's designed to increase the pipeline of school psychologists, school social workers and school counselors who are working in K-12 schools around the country.

• Steven Potter:

  She says the need speaks for itself.

• Katie Eklund:

  In 2018, we had 60 to 70 unfilled positions across the state of school psychologists. We anticipate that school social workers and counselors are experiencing similar shortages, both here in the state and across the country, and that those shortages have only increased over the last five years.

• Steven Potter:

  While everyone from school administrators to the students themselves agree that more mental health professionals are needed in schools, they would still need to be paid.

  And that's where the state legislature could come in.

  Democratic State Representative Robyn Vining has introduced a package of bills aimed at increasing funding K-12 mental health services she says were well past the time for action.

• State Rep. Robyn Vining (D-WI):

  We know there's a mental health care crisis. We know that. And so we cannot look away. I don't believe that we can move forward right now without acting on mental health care.

• Steven Potter:

  One of Representative Vining'S bills would increase state spending on mental health care services in the state'S school system by $100 million per year.

• State Rep. Robyn Vining:

  We're talking about children who are experiencing anxiety, depression, suicidality. And We're trying to get professionals to be available to work with them to help them survive this very difficult stage of life.

• Steven Potter:

  And so, at the local, state and national level, Wisconsin is working to respond to the growing mental health needs of its youngest populations.

  For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Steven Potter in Brookfield, Wisconsin.