News Mashup for August 2023

Sep 1

Written By Margaret Mangan, YMA Digital Communications Coordinator

Care For The Caregivers

This month in Time Magazine journalist Jenny Anderson examines recent research showing how mental health challenges in children impact the mental health of parents—and—vice versa. Anderson’s examination centers on a study released by Harvard University’s Making Caring Common project. The Harvard study shows how deeply interwoven emotional health is between parent and child. National survey data collected from parent-teen dyads “indicate that parents are suffering anxiety and depression at about the same rates as teens.” And mental health challenges in parents, the study claims, can lead to academic, emotional, and physical problems in children.

In a related article published in KFF Health News this month journalist Renuka Rayasam examined the toll on families struggling to care for a mentally ill child within a system short on mental health providers, treatment facilities, and caregiver support programs. In an interview for the article, Mary Ann McCabe, a board member of the American Psychological Association and an associate professor at the George Washington University School of Medicine, stressed that “When the parent’s mental and physical health deteriorates, it complicates their ability to prevent the child’s condition from getting worse.”

Many states are starting to address the care-for-the-caregiver concept. Some allow Medicaid to cover certain whole-family services—in July, for example, California awarded $30.5 million in funds to groups that support youth mental health programs involving parents, grandparents, and other family caregivers.

Click on the links below to learn more.

Jenny Anderson. August 8, 2023. Parents are almost as depressed and anxious as teens. Time. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://time.com/6302430/teenagers-mental-health-parents/.

Renuka Rayasam. August 14, 2023. Parents see own health spiral as their kids’ mental illnesses worsen. KFF Health News. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/parents-health-spiral-kids-mental-illness/.

Richard Weissbourd, Milena Batanova, Mary Laski, Joseph McIntyre, Eric Torres, and Nick Balisciano with Shanae Irving, Sawsan Eskander, and Kiran Bhai. June 2023. Caring for the caregivers: The critical link between parent and teen mental health. Harvard Graduate School of Education. Retrieved August 30, 2023 from https://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/reports/caring-for-the-caregivers.

School Counselors: High Demand — Low Supply

Care for student mental health is increasingly part of the typical school day. But as the 2023-2024 academic year goes into full swing, our schools are facing a shortage of about 100,000 in-house mental health counselors. Nationally, the student-to-school counselor ratio is about 400-to-1. That’s a counseling load well beyond the 250-to-1 ratio recommended by the American School Counselor Association. While states and the federal government are offering incentives to grow the workforce, the need for counselors is, as a recent Washington Post report articulates, “immediate and widespread.”

Many school districts are searching for alternatives. Texas, for example, now allows clergy to serve as school counselors. Elsewhere peer-to-peer programs are being tested. Teachers are being trained to recognize signs of student distress and implement in-class mental health check-ins. Some in-patient psychiatric units have partnered with school districts to open in-house “hospital schools” for students. Other school districts engage community mental health programs.

Such work-arounds may offer stop-gap solutions to this nationwide shortage, but advocates argue that robust long-term efforts to train and maintain student mental health clinicians are essential to achieving positive outcomes.

Click on the links below to learn more.

Bill Zeeble. August 31, 2023. Texas will soon allow unlicensed chaplains to act as school counselors. All Things Considered NPR. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.npr.org/2023/08/31/1197084278/texas-will-soon-allow-unlicensed-chaplains-to-act-as-school-counselors.

Brittany R. Collins. August 7, 2023. Teachers and students are not okay right now: More mental health training would help. The Hechinger Report. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://hechingerreport.org/opinion-teachers-and-students-are-not-okay-right-now-more-mental-health-training-would-help/.

Steven Berkowitz. August 16, 2023. As the mental health crisis in children and teens worsens, the dire shortage of mental health providers is preventing young people from getting the help they need. The Conversation. Retrieved August 23, 2023 from https://theconversation.com/as-the-mental-health-crisis-in-children-and-teens-worsens-the-dire-shortage-of-mental-health-providers-is-preventing-young-people-from-getting-the-help-they-need-207476.

Donna St. George. August 31, 2023. In a crisis, schools are 100,000 mental health staff short. The Washington Post. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/08/31/mental-health-crisis-students-have-third-therapists-they-need/.

Rebecca Redelmeier. August 31, 2023. As more young people receive psychiatric care, some hospitals have opened their own schools. The Hechinger Report. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://hechingerreport.org/the-number-of-young-people-hospitalized-for-psychiatric-care-is-rising-some-hospitals-have-opened-their-own-schools/.

Nirmita Panchal, Cynthia Cox, and Robin Rudowitz. September 6, 2022. The landscape of school-based mental health services. Kaiser Family Foundation. Retrieved August 2023 from https://www.kff.org/mental-health/issue-brief/the-landscape-of-school-based-mental-health-services/.

When The ED Is The Only Choice

This month the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research at Cornell University published a review of recent research on pediatric emergency department (ED) visitation. Central to their review is new research published in JAMA Pediatrics showing that between 2015 and 2020 pediatric hospitals saw an 8 percent annual increase in admissions of patients aged 3 to 17 years, with a sizeable proportion of these being re-admissions within six months of the initial visit. The results reflect 308,264 mental health ED visits from 217, 865 unique patients.

The majority of return visits were not related to suicide attempts or other means of self-harm— return visits were most prevalent for youth demonstrating disruptive, impulsive, and/or aggressive behaviors. Relative to self-harming patients, youth with impulse control disorders were 36 percent more likely to return to the ED. Youth treated with chemical restraint medications were 22 percent more likely to return relative to those not receiving these drugs.

These results are a strong indication that many young people with behavioral health problems are not getting the support they need from community-based systems of care. Too often caregivers are forced to turn to a hospital emergency department for help.

The Bronfenbrenner review also examined recent research on the prevalence and demographics of chemical restraint usage. The review cites another JAMA Pediatrics article showing that despite national guidelines recommending avoidance of chemical restraints “these medications increased by 370 percent from 2009 to 2019” and that they “are more likely to be used on Black patients and male patients between 18 and 21 years old.”

Click on the links below to learn more.

The Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. August 3, 2023. What we know about youth mental health visits to the ER. Psychology Today. Retrieved August 23, 2023 from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evidence-based-living/202308/what-we-know-about-youth-mental-health-visits-to-the-er.

Cushing AM, Liberman DB, Pham PK, and others. December 2022. Mental health revisits at US pediatric emergency departments. JAMA Pediatr. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36574251/.

Foster AA, Porter JJ, Monuteaux MC, Hoffmann JA, and Hudgins JD. September 2021. Pharmacologic restraint use during mental health visits in pediatric emergency departments. JAMA Pediatr. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33771581/.

Academy of Pediatrics. August 16, 2023. Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Emergency Physicians, and Emergency Nurses Association call for strategies to improve care for children, adolescents seeking urgent help for mental, behavioral health concerns. [News Release]. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.aap.org/en/news-room/news-releases/aap/2023/call-for-strategies-to-improve-care-for-children-adolescents-seeking-urgent-help-for-mental-behavioral-health-concerns/.

Mohsen Saidinejad, Susan Duffy, Dina Wallin, Jennifer A. Hoffmann, Madeline M. Joseph, and others. August 16, 2023. The management of children and youth with pediatric mental and behavioral health emergencies. American Academy of Pediatrics. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2023-063256.

Erika Edwards. August 16, 2023. Emergency room doctors beg for help treating children with mental health illnesses. NBC News. Retrieved August 31, 2023 from https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/emergency-room-doctors-beg-help-treating-children-mental-health-illnes-rcna99951.

Margaret Mangan, YMA Digital Communications Coordinator

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