Jessuca Kourkounis / Keystone Crossroads
With the number of young people experiencing mental health crises on the rise and yet another mass shooting across the country, Pennsylvania lawmakers are making mental health services a top priority in this year’s budget, approving a first-ever $100 million line item for in-school support. .
Citing recent tragedies in Texas and Illinois, Rep. Stan Saylor, R-York, said through the funding, the state is trying to link mental health and safety and security “so there aren’t people falling through the cracks.”
Each school district in the state receives $100,000 in base funding, and charter schools receive $70,000.
In addition, $100 million will go to the state’s Safety and Security Fund, which was established in 2018 to improve the physical safety of schools after the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. These funds have historically been used to improve security, including adding cameras, secure entrances and staffing to school buildings.
For educators, addressing mental health is necessary to ensure children have a good place to learn, said John Callahan, lead attorney for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. State funding helps schools proactively and proactively address mental health to engage students before it rises to crisis levels.
Callahan said school districts have addressed mental health needs in a number of ways, including increasing the number of school counselors and school psychologists, which can be expensive with salary and benefits. Others depend on subscriptions for these services, including one district that uses a telephone service to provide support to students.
Many school districts also work closely with their counties’ behavioral health services, he said. But because of the strain placed on staff at county level, waiting times for service can reach three weeks.
According to Donna Duffy-Bell, Bucks County’s behavioral health/developmental programs administrator, Bucks County’s mobile crisis unit, for example, was gutted during the pandemic and was operating at significantly reduced capacity.
“I’m sure the schools and the community as a whole felt the impact of this limited capacity,” he said.
Pennsylvania’s need for mental health support has grown in recent years.
In 2021, the number of people seeking care at youth crisis hotlines, mobile crisis response teams and statewide crisis centers increased over last year, according to the Department of Human Services.
What’s more, 40% of Pennsylvania sixth-, eighth-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students surveyed in 2021 said they felt sad or depressed most days in the past year—up slightly from 38 percent of students surveyed in 2017 and 2019. %.
Also, more children were seriously considering or planning suicide in 2021 than in the previous two survey years, and the number of self-harms also increased. The data, which state agencies collect every two years from 1,908 eligible schools, reflects an increase in mental health problems among Pennsylvania’s youth, officials said.
“We know this is an ongoing collective effort,” said Bucks County Children’s Services Director Monica Stefanik. “We continue to see growth and want to pull together as a community to support young people on many levels. This will help improve mental health over time if we all work together.
In addition to school mental health funding, lawmakers appropriated $42.6 million for county mental health offices that provide home and community-based behavioral health services.
Another $100 million in federal aid will support behavioral health care for adults.
Marc Levy contributed reporting. Brooke Schultz is a member of the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative corps. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on hidden issues. Follow Brooke Schultz on Twitter.
