Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Legislators listen to teen’s idea to improve students’ mental health
Mental health advocate Rob Barsel often preaches about the positive effects of a regimented schedule.
For Barsel, 17, a junior at The Meadows School, it’s worked wonders for helping treat his generalized anxiety disorder. He mostly wakes up and goes to sleep at the same time every day, schedules his meals. His after-school hobbies include debate club and grandiose displays of sleight-ofhand card tricks. Homework and studying are musts too, he said.
And for the better part of the past year, Barsel has carved out a new routine in his schedule: working with Nevada lawmakers to craft a bill that would standardize mental health education across the state.
“I’d say as far as garnering actual support, that part’s been the easiest part,” Barsel said. “Post-pandemic, nobody, including legislators, for the most part, is denying that we need more mental health education and mental health resources. So, it hasn’t been too hard actually going out and talking to people and getting their support for the piece.”
Barsel has been the driving force behind Senate Bill 313, which was introduced last month and referred to the Senate Education Committee. If it becomes law, the bill would require the Nevada Department of Education to develop social and emotional learning standards to teach pupils throughout the K-12 system information concerning mental health and what mental health resources are available to them.
Another part of the bill creates requirements for prospective teachers to complete a course in mental health education to obtain a teaching license. It would also require that existing teachers renewing their license complete credits in a mental health education.
The bill has several sponsors from both sides of the aisle, including state
Sens. Roberta Lange, D-las Vegas; Lisa Krasner, R-carson City, and Scott Hammond, R-las Vegas. Assemblywoman Heidi Kasama, R-las Vegas, is a joint sponsor in the lower chamber. SB 313 has a real shot of picking up further bipartisan support as the legislative session progresses, Lange said.
“I feel really good about it,” said Lange, a retired schoolteacher and the upper chamber’s assistant majority leader. “It’s really about the safety of our kids. And it isn’t only about the safety of our kids, it’s about safety for teachers and support staff, and everyone in the schools, because if our mental health is good then we create a safer environment for everyone.”
The fact that it’s picked up bipartisan support this early in the process is a good sign, Lange added. Any bill advancing through the Legislature would likely need some bipartisan support, as Democrats hold majorities in the Senate and Assembly, but Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, has veto power for bills that make it to his desk. Having bipartisan support increases the chances that Lombardo would support legislation, or that a bill would pass with a veto-proof majority.
“We have other people who want to sign on,” Lange said. “But we’re at a point in the process, I said they should wait until it moves houses.”
Barsel will be in Carson City on Monday to give a presentation on the bill to the Senate Education Committee.
Nevada ranks 51st nationally — dead last — for providing children with mental health care, according to the America’s School Mental Health Report Card on State Health System Performance. Nationwide, 1 in 5 children meet criteria for a diagnosable mental health disorder.
Nevada is one of 23 states without any kind of mental health curriculum built into statute, Barsel said. Because of that, Barsel realizes there’s real-world impact riding on this bill.
“I am aware that they’re probably going to have some issues with, say, whether this will be adding more training onto teachers,” Barsel said. “Teachers are already underpaid and already have too much work. So there is going to be the pushback there. How can I work and answer that? It’s just a lot of prep work and thinking out what I might get asked.”
Mature beyond his years
Barsel’s journey with mental health struggles began when he was 5, after his father died from a heart attack.
The sudden passing sent shock waves throughout the family, said Kelly Knight, Barsel’s mother. Knight, Rob and his sister, Peyton Barsel, soon began attending group therapy at Adam’s Place, a local nonprofit grief counseling center.
“Watching my children grieve was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, including, you know, losing my husband,” Knight said. “So that was a struggle for me, but I was also in acute grief, and I realized I couldn’t help them on every level, so that’s why I got them involved in the peer support group, and then regular therapy.”
Barsel’s grief would come and go as time went on, a common phenomenon for children processing trauma, Knight said. But for Barsel, there were times he would increasingly drift off to a make-believe world in his mind, where he could control every meticulous detail.
Such bouts of dissociation are known by psychologists as paracosms.
“When I first told Rob that his dad had died, he thought that he was going to disappear and then come back later, and that we would lose money because that’s what his “Star Wars” Lego game did,” Knight said. “That’s just part of that 5-year-old’s process. It’s like magical thinking.
“So later, when he realized that his dad truly wasn’t coming back, he regrieved, so I watched this sadness evolve over many years, and how it impacted his ability to have faith that he could handle things as they come.”
Over the next seven years, Barsel regularly took part in peer support groups aimed at discussing mental health, where a group facilitator would lead discussion on a variety of topics.
And eventually, the results were clear.
“When he got into middle school, it was like a switch happened,” Knight said. “I certainly don’t want to paint him out to have been a bad kid early on, but he just turned into this unbelievably kind, compassionate, empathetic person.”
The results were so good, in fact, that by the time he was 12, the leaders at Adam’s Place asked him to become a peer support facilitator for kids aged 5-7. He obliged, and spent the next year training.
Since then, Barsel has spent more than 600 hours volunteering, by leading support groups for three organizations, launched his own nonprofit called Coping Kids and has authored a workbook with exercises aimed at teaching healthy coping mechanisms and improving overall mental well-being.
Last year, he wrote to thengov. Steve Sisolak, prompting him to proclaim May 2022 Nevada Mental Health Awareness Month.
The efforts have led Barsel to be recognized on state and national levels. He was last year’s Governor’s Points of Light honoree and has earned a Presidential Volunteer Service Award medal in each of the past four years.
“Rob is mature beyond his age, and his life experience, as unfortunate as it is, has brought him to this important moment in time in his young life,” Rocky Finseth, president and CEO of Carrara Nevada government affairs, said in an email. Carrara Nevada is the lobbying firm that’s worked pro bono to advocate for SB 313.
The process of getting the bill off the ground picked up steam last year when Finseth connected Barsel with Lange. Lange was receptive, and she had Barsel present an outline of the bill draft last summer to the Joint Interim Education Committee, where members seemed impressed not only with Barsel, but how comprehensive the bill was.
Whether it be the lawmakers working to advance SB313 or the stakeholders with whom Barsel has met for feedback, nearly all agree that his dedication has remained unwavering throughout this process.
“His passion and advocacy for those who don’t have a voice inside the Legislature, and his compassion and tenacity on behalf of his peers and those in the teaching profession, is probably what impresses me the most throughout this journey,” Finseth said.
Just the beginning
While it appears Barsel is primed to start a career in public policy or psychology, he says he’s actually interested in pursuing studies in the biomedical field.
Whether that’s here or on the East Coast is still to be determined. Over the winter, Barsel visited a slew of universities in the northeast. California is a possible landing spot, too, but regardless of where he goes, he’ll have to wait to get his SAT score back after just having taken the test last month.
Ultimately, Barsel said he’d like to study drug interactions to find a possible cure for Alzheimer’s disease.
In school “I fell in love with the process of research, and just going out and pulling your hair out looking at different elements to an actual experiment,” he said.
And if SB 313 doesn’t become law, that’s OK, Barsel said. He’ll keep helping people.
“Even if it doesn’t go through, I’m never going to stop,” Barsel said. “I have my workbook I’m still working on finishing, and I’ll continue to run support groups. It’s always something I want to continue.”