The report card is in: All 50 states can do more to help schools confront youth mental health crisis – By Alia Wong (USA Today) / February 16, 2022
- The first-of-its-kind “America’s School Mental Health Report Card,” released Wednesday, found that all 50 states are struggling to empower schools amid the country’s worsening crisis.
- Nearly 1 in 3 parents say their children’s mental health is worse now than it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll.
- Only Idaho and Washington, D.C., exceed the nationally recommended ratio of one school psychologist for every 500 students, the report card shows.
Young people’s mental health is in such bad shape that several of the country’s leading pediatric groups called it a national emergency last fall.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy even issued an advisory – a move reserved for the most urgent public health challenges – highlighting the COVID-19 pandemic’s devastating impact on the already-dire state of children’s mental health.
“It would be a tragedy if we beat back one public health crisis only to allow another to grow in its place,” Murthy wrote, outlining recommendations on how agencies such as schools can take action.
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