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The Wisconsin Office of Children's Mental Health (OCMH) released its 2022 annual report and it shows reports of suicide, depression, and anxiety among kids are up.
"I would expect that even next year's report would be worse than this year's report," said Dr. Ashely Schoof, the senior clinical director of the STRONG Milwaukee Center.
In the report, officials cited that there's a significant shortage of mental health professionals throughout Wisconsin. That shortage is what Dr. Schoof believes is making it harder for children to get the help they need.
"It seems as if it's harder to meet the criteria for inpatient care and it's even harder to get into my level of care as well," said Dr. Schoof. "There are just not enough people doing it. So you're taking the worst of the worst instead of the ones that need help because there are so many."
Recent UW-Madison grad Delaney Slattery is a huge advocate for children getting access to care as soon as possible. She started going to counseling in 5th grade after suffering from trichotillomania. It's a mental health disorder where a person compulsively pulls out their own hair.
"The hair pulling was an outer symptom of a deeper problem, but because we got to that pretty quickly we were able to reach in and work on that a lot faster," said Slattery.
Slattery says she got through it, with the help of therapy.
"I did have some more mental health things that came up in college. But going to counseling for those things one, wasn't a foreign concept I was comfortable with it, I was ok with it, and two, I knew that it worked."
To help combat the shortage, the STRONG Milwaukee Center recently launched a new internship program to help get more young adults into the workforce. But healthcare officials say more funding is going to be needed for programs like this across the entire state in order to see a change.
"We don't have enough programs that are training therapists," said Dr. Schoof. "It's time for a wake-up call to understand what our children really need because they are our future."
What's in the 2023 report from the Wisconsin Office of Children's Mental Health?
The OCMH released its detailed report Friday, saying the effects of the pandemic are continuing to weigh heavily on youth. Children returned to the classroom and found themselves facing new challenges like how to fill learning gaps, how to act in a classroom environment, and how to interact with peers.
Because some of these challenges are new, the OCMH decided to focus on concerns within schools and how to address new challenges related to children's mental health.
The OCMH said throughout its efforts, it found many lasting impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, and how connections can reduce emotional distress, suicidal thoughts, and physical violence. However, the report did note that this problem of poor mental health among kids did start long before the pandemic.
What the report found was that anxiety, depression, and suicide reports are up again, and nearly 34% of Wisconsin students feel sad and hopeless almost every day. The OCMH said youth's sense of belonging at school is continuing to drop, especially among Hispanic students.
When looking at specific numbers, the OCMH found 52% of Wisconsin youth reported anxiety, 25% of females said they'd seriously considered self-harm, and 22% of Wisconsin youth reported self-harm. The report also states nearly half of LGBT youth in Wisconsin have seriously considered suicide.
To make matters worse, the ratio of mental health professionals to youth is much higher than what is recommended. According to the OCMH, the recommended ratio of community-based mental health professionals is 250:1. In Wisconsin, the ratio is 440:1.
For school-based psychologists, the recommended ratio is 500:1. In Wisconsin, it's 826:1.
The OCMH, however, also looked at some of the positive changes surrounding youth's mental health. It found the number of school-based mental health professionals is up, and schools can now consider mental health expansions thanks to federal pandemic funds.
Overall, the OCMH found that children who have good social connections and feel like they belong have better mental health, better academic outcomes, and engage in fewer risky behaviors. It found that being a part of a social network beyond family can lessen stress, reduce feelings of loneliness, depression, and anxiety, and can cause overall better well-being.
According to the report, feeling connected at school during youth can reduce the following in adulthood:
- Emotional distress and odds of suicidal ideation
- Physical violence, victimization, and perpetration
- Sexually transmitted infection diagnosis
- Prescription drug misuse and other illicit drug use
You can read the full report from the OCMH below.
