This article has been submitted by Bina Lefkovitz, Sacramento County Board of Education Trustee Area 1. If you are interested in sending an article to the LPCA for consideration, contact us at: communications@landpark.org Articles must be informational and of value to the community. We will not accept political or self-promotional pieces.
The mental health crisis of students has been well documented even before COVID. One in five people live with a mental health issue. Since COVID student mental health issues are increasing with more students experiencing the impact of social isolation combined with social media. Right now 50% of mental illness shows up in youth before the age of 14, and 75% by the age of 24. Sadly, 79% of young people do not get treatment. In 2019, 13 percent of adolescents reported having a major depressive episode, a 60 percent increase from 2007. Emergency room visits by children and adolescents in that period also rose sharply for anxiety, mood disorders and self-harm. And for people ages 10 to 24, suicide rates, stable from 2000 to 2007, leaped nearly 60 percent by 2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Suicide is the number two cause of death in young people.
This topic is personal to me. I’m the parent of two adult children who attended SCUSD schools. One had anxiety and ADHD and one struggled with depression. These showed up while they were in grade school and high school. My family had the resources to seek private therapeutic services. Our public schools have a high percent of low socio-economic students who rely on med-Cal services. Less than 5% of these students access services. Untreated mental health issues show up in our schools with school absences, behavior issues, and poor academic achievement.
As a parent leader at SCUSD for over a decade, I volunteered to get social and emotional learning efforts off the ground. As your Sacramento County Board of Education Trustee, my main priorities are mental health and social and emotional learning. Along with other school board trustees and community advocates, we have been able to increase financial commitment by the county and Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE). They are now committed to investing in school-site mental health workers, expansion of social and emotional strategies and the growth of peer to peer mental health programs. In addition, SCOE is training school administrators on how to recapture state and county funds that will sustain school social workers and nurses. SCUSD is also investing $ 2 million of its American Recovery Act and After School funds in peer programs at our local high schools and middle schools.
In 2021, SCOE received COVID funding from the City of Sacramento and launched an innovative program combining art, mental health and mentors to help students express feelings, and seek help if needed. We’ve also supported career development to increase the number and diversity of mental health workers. This includes creating a mental health apprenticeship program and funding paid internships for students seeking a mental health degree. Finally, I’ve been a big supporter of increased mental health education in our schools. A new state law will require that all health class beginning in 2024 include mental health education. We need to make sure SCUSD and the other districts comply with this law.
Mental health can be improved by simple steps as noted by the California Surgeon General who has six stress busting strategies: Physical Activity, sleep, nutrition, mindfulness, caring relationships, mental health care.
If you are concerned about your child’s mental health, here are some key free county resources where you can get immediate help:
- The Source- 24/7 support focused on youth and their families https://thesourcesacramento.com/ text, call or ask for in-person support (916) 787-8678
- Youth Help Network provides free, short term services and support to all youth ages 16 – 25years old in Sacramento County. For questions or to connect to services, please call or text (916) 860-9819. M-F 9am-7pm. This web site also have fantastic resources around mental health.
- Mental Health Urgent Care Clinic for walk in support during and emergency https://www.tpcp.org/programs/urgent-care/ 2130 Stockton Boulevard, Building 300, Sacramento, CA 95817, M-F 10am-7pm Saturday and Sundays 10-6pm
- National Suicide Crisis Line https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ 1800 273 8255
If your school has a social worker on your school campus, please alert them so they can be aware and offer you and your child support. SCUSD has social workers on about 1/3rd of its campuses and have received District funding for another 20 social workers. They are trying to hire staff as fast as possible, but are competing with many schools in our County who are now adding in social workers on campuses.
For more resources including speakers with lived experience who can speak about mental health stigma, signs and mental health education:
- Stop Stigma Mental Health: https://www.stopstigmasacramento.org/
- National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI Sacramento): https://namisacramento.org/ please also join the NAMI Walk on May 7th in William Land Park as part of Mental Health Awareness Month, to support NAMI and also to learn more about mental health. https://www.namiwalks.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.event&eventID=1206
- Mental Health America has lots of great resources https://www.mhanational.org/live-b4stage4
You can contact me if to speak at a PTA, friend group or neighborhood association: blefkovitz@gmail.com, blekovitz@scoe.net,
I will continue to support advocacy efforts to get SCUSD, the County, and SCOE to invest more in the mental health of our students.
Bina Lefkovitz
Sacramento County Board of Education
Trustee, Area 1