News Mashup for January 2023

Feb 1

Written By Margaret Mangan, YMA Digital Communications Coordinator

What Worries Parents?

Mental health is an overwhelming concern of today’s parents. In a new survey by the Pew Research Center, 40% of the parents responding registered extreme worry about childhood depression and anxiety. The overall results show that worry about mental health significantly outweighed other threats children face, including physical harm, drugs, teen pregnancy, and run-ins with police.

Results parsed by income, race, and ethnicity, however, show significant differences. Lower-income and Hispanic parents are more apt to worry about physical safety, teen pregnancy, and substance abuse. Compared to White or Asian parents, Black and Hispanic parents worry more about their children getting shot or getting in trouble with the police. Findings are based on a Fall of 2022 survey of nearly 4,000 U.S. parents with children under the age of 18.

The lockdowns precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic have certainly increased mental distress in children, but despite return to in-person instruction, the impact of the lockdowns continue. In a recent interview with The Hill, the President of the School Social Workers Association of Georgia, Terriyln Rivers-Cannon, said that “Midway through the 2022-2023 school year, school social workers are finding that youth are still experiencing a high level of mental health challenges.”

Rivers-Cannon finds that “young people appear to be releasing their feelings arising from those traumatic situations, which they may have previously been holding inside them, in a different way” citing instances of acting out and difficulty reconnecting face-to-face with peers.

Many worried parents have nowhere to turn for help. A new report by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) shows that 47% of the US population, some 158 million people, live in a behavioral health workforce shortage area. Access to care is particularly acute for Medicaid enrollees. The KFF study found that nationally, only 36% of psychiatrists accept new Medicaid patients. In December 2022 Congress authorized the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, which has provisions to address workforce shortages. Experts from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute have written extensively about how the Act will benefit children and families.

Click on the links below to learn more.

Rachel Minkin and Juliana Menasce Horowitz. January 24, 2023. Parenting in America today. PEW Research Center. Retrieved January 31, 2023 from https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2023/01/24/parenting-in-america-today/ .

Chia-Yi Hou. January 25, 2023. Parents worry about growing post-pandemic youth mental health crisis. The Hill. Retrieved January 31, 2023 from https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/mental-health/3828861-parents-worry-about-growing-post-pandemic-youth-mental-health-crisis/.

Cory Smith. January 26, 2023. Parents worry more about mental health issues than kidnapping, drug use, teen pregnancy. ABC News4. Retrieved January 31, 2023 from https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/parents-worry-mental-health-kidnapping-drugs-teen-pregnancy-teenagers-children-parenting-youth-emotions-wellness .

Janelle Chavez . January 31, 2023. Children’s mental health tops list of parent worries, survey finds. CNN. Retrieved January 31, 2023 from https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/health/mental-health-parenting-survey/index.html .

Frank Diamond. January 13, 2023. KFF study details the challenges in addressing mental health in Medicaid. Fierce HealthCare. Retrieved January 30, 2023 from https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payers/managed-medicaid-gearing-fight-mental-health-problems-analysis-finds .

Heather Saunders, Madeline Guth, and Gina Eckart. January 10, 2023. A look at strategies to address behavioral health workforce shortages: Findings from a survey of state Medicaid programs. Kaiser Family Foundations. Retrieved January 30, 2023 from https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/a-look-at-strategies-to-address-behavioral-health-workforce-shortages-findings-from-a-survey-of-state-medicaid-programs/.

Natalie Lawson. January 13, 2023. Funding for community health workers authorized in Consolidated Appropriations Act – How could this help children and families? Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. Retrieved January 31, 2023 from https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2023/01/13/funding-for-community-health-workers-authorized-in-consolidated-appropriations-act-how-could-this-help-children-and-families/.

Nancy Netherland. Janaury 19, 2023. For many California children, Medi-Cal mental health services lack urgency they need. CalMatters. Retrieved January 30, 2023 from https://calmatters.org/commentary/2023/01/mental-health-youth-crisis-medical/.

The Downside of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act

This month, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) evaluated youth mental health aspects of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA). The BSCA is widely applauded for major investments in school-based mental health, including extending Medicaid coverage for in-school services, expanded Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment (EPSDT) and telehealth benefits, and incentives to increase the mental health workforce.

On the flip side, CLASP argues, aspects of the BSCA bolster carceral systems that disproportionally and adversely impact the health and wellbeing of Black, brown, LGBTQIA+, low income, and disabled youth. And as the California Health Care Foundation points out, BSCA reinforces an erroneous belief that gun violence is primarily perpetuated by the mentally ill. Further, CLASP points to BSCA’s “school-hardening measures that fuel the school-to-prison pipeline by expanding police presence in schools.” CLASP cites research showing that such measures “create hostile learning environments and lead to increased anxiety and mistrust for students.”

CLASP calls on Congress to pass additional mental health legislation promoting equity, including (taken verbatim):

Counseling not Criminalization Act—This bill requires that funding is diverted from law enforcement to evidence-based, trauma-informed supports in schools.
Health Equity and Accountability Act—This bill includes language that creates a blueprint for achieving health equity, from data collection, mental health, maternal and child health, to the social determinants of health (e.g., education, housing).

Click on the links to learn more.

Isha Weerasinghe, Kayla Tawa, and Emily Kim. January 2023. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act: Mental health wins undermined for Black and brown youth. CLASP. Retrieved January 30, 2023 from https://www.clasp.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/2023.01.12_The-Bipartisan-Safer-Communities-Act-Mental-Health-Wins-Undermined-for-Black-and-Brown-Youth.pdf.

Deanie Anyangwe and Clarence Okoh. January 21, 2023. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act: A dangerous new chapter in the war on Black youth. CLASP. Retrieved January 30, 2023 from https://www.clasp.org/publications/report/brief/the-bipartisan-safer-communities-act-a-dangerous-new-chapter-in-the-war-on-black-youth .

Kristen Abram. September 12, 2022. Student privacy a concern during implementation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Center for Democracy and Technology. Retrieved January 30, 2023 from https://cdt.org/insights/student-privacy-a-concern-during-implementation-of-the-bipartisan-safer-communities-act/.

Margaret Mangan, YMA Digital Communications Coordinator

News Mashup for January 2023

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