New data shows some improvement in young people's mental health, although there is still a long way to go

“This tells us that positive change is possible and that improvements are encouraging,” says Fener Sitkoff. “It tells us that the increased awareness and unprecedented funding that has come since the pandemic are paying off. It also tells us that a year into reversing the trend doesn’t mean we can slow down, because the numbers are still not very good. We should dig deeper and invest more in what is working.”

Changing mental health needs

Principal Chris Young had been increasing the number of mental health staff at North Country Union High School in Vermont, in a rural district less than 10 miles from the Canadian border, about a year before anyone had heard of COVID-19. Then, after the health crisis hit, with two clinical physicians on staff at the school, two college and career counselors, a wellness counselor and a behavioral specialist, he felt the school was well-equipped to support students during the return to in-person classes after the previous school year was disrupted.

“What surprised us the most when students returned in the fall of 2020 was how angry they were,” Young says. “I’ve never seen a group of students so angry. We thought students would be happy to come back and see their friends, but we failed to give them time and space to grieve what they lost. They lost an entire semester, they couldn’t communicate anywhere but online, which is very damaging. We should have been more intentional about helping them get through what they experienced.”

Since then, Young says the school has taken a campus-wide approach to wellness. Part of that is creating what they call advisory teams, where teachers lead groups of 12 to 14 students in activities that can range from icebreakers to talking about serious topics like suicide prevention and substance abuse.

“That’s the biggest change, going from a centralized approach where a few people do all the work to a decentralized one where all the teachers do some work and the wellness staff works with the kids with the highest needs,” Young says. “What we’re trying to do is create a community. If you feel seen and heard, you’re more likely to do better in school and feel better about yourself.”

Young’s approach aligns with what Fener Sitkoff says is the best way for schools to provide mental health support to students before they reach a crisis, while also preserving counseling staff bandwidth. She says schools can strengthen their mental health scaffolding by adding what she calls a universal skills curriculum, which teaches students concepts like building positive relationships and self-advocacy, along with screenings to identify students who are at risk for — but not yet experiencing — a mental health crisis.

“Schools will increasingly see themselves as part of the solution, and families will too,” says Fener Sitkoff. “Community doctors often have waiting lists for months, and families come to schools saying, ‘Help.’ Because the result shows up in attendance or grades, they can see it a little sooner.”

A student's perspective

Assuming that today's students feel comfortable asking for help with mental health issues would be a mistake, says high school senior Anjali Verma. The 17-year-old is president of the National Association of Secondary School Principals' National Council of Students and became a mental health advocate as a freshman.

“I’ve had a lot of students tell me that they’re having a really hard time, especially with suicidal ideation, and that they don’t feel comfortable talking to an adult at their school,” Verma says. “People feel like it shows that they’re less of a person, when that’s so far from the truth. I think we’re moving toward greater well-being, but it would be a mistake to assume that mental health is destigmatized, because it’s not at all.”

Verma says she has had her own experiences with online bullying and, as a student athlete, saw how she and her teammates struggled with toxic competitiveness, seeing “our identity in athletics and not seeing each other as people first.”

“They feel like their mental health isn’t taken as seriously as their physical health,” she says. “It’s much easier to talk to someone about a bandaged ankle than about one when they’re feeling desperate.”

Verma is a strong advocate for peer support and trains students to recognize signs of distress in themselves and their friends, and how to connect with mental health resources.

One challenge adults need to be aware of, she says, is that teens are good at hiding their pain. Pointing to data from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey showing that girls report feeling persistently sad or hopeless at higher rates than boys, Verma says that figure doesn't tell the whole story considering other national data shows men die by suicide at higher rates. four times larger than women.

“That’s one way stigma comes into play: Boys and people who identify as boys feel like they’re weak if they ask for help, or that they’re not manly enough if they’re seen struggling,” she says.

If a student is going to signal that he or she needs help, he or she adds, he or she will likely start with his or her peers.

“It’s about teaching them things like self-care, emotional first aid kits, what they can have on hand when they’re going through a situation that’s making them anxious or not feeling like themselves,” Verma explains. “It’s important to make sure that there’s a group of students who are trained to know what to do when their peers are in crisis, because often times students are taking on a friend’s problems when, many times, a mental health professional needs to intervene.”