Conn. must fulfill mental health promise

If one-third of Connecticut’s children were bleeding, it’s hard to imagine the state’s lawmakers wouldn’t rally to find a bipartisan solution.

But the pain of mental health can be invisible. In the wake of the pandemic, lawmakers seemed to recognize that the suffering of too many children was being treated with triage.

A broad package of legislation was passed last year to establish and support mental health services intended to stem the rising tide of anxiety, depression and suicide.

Now that they can see the price tag, Gov. Ned Lamont and lawmakers seem more hesitant. Most of the funding was absent from both Lamont’s budget proposal, as well as the version pitched by the Appropriations Committee.

With just a few weeks left on this session, lawmakers should take the time to consider the jarring statistics from the latest Connecticut School Health Survey. It was conducted in 2021. At the time, many experts predicted fallout from social isolation and reduced schooling. That time has come. Children — and adults — didn’t just heal when the masks came off.

Maybe they can shrug off that one-third of the students surveyed reported sadness. Everyone gets the blues sometimes, right?

They might even downplay that about 25 percent of the students acknowledge their mental health is not strong most of the time. It is, after all, a complicated world.

But the suicidal thoughts reported by one in seven students should get anyone’s attention. These numbers don’t reflect kids who just contemplated suicide, but those who admit seriously thinking about taking their own lives.

Only about 22 percent of the surveyed children say they are getting the help they need. Getting a child to recognize they need help isn’t easy. But even these children know their needs are not being met.

That 22 percent is also the lowest figure on record. It may be asking too much to expect all students to be satisfied with available services. But it’s the only goal we should have.

It’s not easy to contextualize what it really means to consider the related fever chart that indicates a drop off a cliff since 2008. This invisible pain should have been apparent long before now.

It becomes visible in the packed emergency rooms, which too often become revolving doors. Call 911 and an ambulance will come, but the help isn’t always there. The pain is also apparent in wait lists for inpatient services for children. And the IICAPS (Intensive In-Home Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Services) program has about 500 families waiting for services. It can take several months to move to the head of the line that delivers at-home help.

As a result, it has become common for families in crisis to manage care on their own. The survey tells us that children are willing to talk about their pain, a challenge in past generations.

The state can’t answer every need. IICAPS, for example, is funded by insurance. And every state has a similar strain to find behavioral health specialists. But Lamont & Co. did the right thing last year by acknowledging that this is a crisis.

We’re at the evergreen point in the budget process when lawmakers play games to get what they want in the budget. Connecticut can’t roll the dice on the mental health of its children. The bleeding must be stopped.