Sunday, Aug. 22, 2021 | 2 a.m.
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Nevada lawmakers made progress this year in rectifying a serious deficit of counseling and mental health resources for children in the state’s public schools.
But there’s no room to take a breather in addressing this problem, as reflected in studies showing that children are returning to classes this year suffering rampant psychological fallout from the pandemic.
Among the findings of recent studies:
• An examination of 29 different studies conducted in the United States and overseas showed that roughly 25% of children have symptoms of depression and 20% were experiencing symptoms of anxiety. Those levels were significantly higher than studies conducted before the pandemic.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that emergency room visits by children over mental health-related issues rose steadily from April 2020 through October 2020. Compared with 2019, these visits were up 24% among children ages 5 through 11 and 31% among children 12 through 17.
• CDC researchers discovered that emergency room visits for suspected suicide attempts rose 26.2% among girls ages 12 through 17 during the summer of 2020, and increased 10.8% among boys of that age group. In winter 2021, the rates continued to increase.
• Other studies showed a sharp rise in eating disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder that could be tied to the pandemic.
More research is out there, and it all points to something we could all see happening — the pandemic inflicted emotional and psychological wounds on many of our children as it disrupted their lives. And no wonder. In many cases, they suffered the loss of a relative or someone else close to them, faced financial uncertainty with their families due to layoffs, were isolated from their friends, missed out on treasured rites of passage, struggled academically amid the switch to remote learning, etc.
“Nearly all students have experienced some challenges to their mental health and well-being during the pandemic,” the U.S. Department of Education stated in a report issued in June.
For Nevada children, the good news is that lawmakers set aside $7.5 million of the state’s allotment of federal pandemic relief funding to hire 100 school-based mental health professionals, and lawmakers passed legislation during the 2021 session to develop a long-range plan to shore up counseling and mental health services in the areas of greatest need — the Clark and Washoe county school districts.
But unfortunately, these steps were long overdue, and we have a lot of digging out to do.
Going into the session, the American School Counseling Association (ASCA) reported that the ratio of school counselors to students was 477 to 1 in Nevada during the 2019-20 school year. That’s nearly twice the 250-to-1 ratio recommended by the ASCA.
During the session, a long line of school counselors urged Nevada lawmakers to send help to schools. They were professionals like Ward Drusedum, a counselor at Helen C. Cannon Junior High School, who told legislators that 511 students had been assigned to him.
“Many counselors (myself included) find it difficult to provide services to all students due to the high number of students in crisis and the large caseload,” Drusedum stated in written testimony. “Students in crisis take a lot of time. I had over 60 students with suicidal ideation during one school year.”
Sadly, Drusedum’s experience was anything but unusual: The ASCA reports that during the 2019-20 school year, the most recent for which statistics were available, the national average was one counselor per 424 students.
Here’s a show of support and admiration to all of the counselors and mental health professionals who remain steadfastly on the job despite their growing caseloads.
Meanwhile, here’s a call for lawmakers nationally and in Nevada to provide our children with the services they need and give our overstretched counselors some relief.
