Well, I don’t know if y’all have noticed, but we have a big issue. When I say we, I don’t just mean PCN or Oklahoma, I’m talking about this entire country. Our issue is the mental health of our youth (ages 12-17.) According to Mental Health America, in 2022, 23.53% of the country had a low rate of mental health problems, but a higher rate of access to care. The rest of the country(76.47%) had a high rate of mental health problems and a low rate of access to care.

Just to let you guys and girls know, Oklahoma is not a part of that 23.53%. We are ranking #28 in overall youth mental health and #36 in Severe Major Depressive episodes (MDE). That’s unacceptable in my opinion, so I believe if our state doesn’t want to do anything about it but our school districts do, we should help better the mental health of everyone and ourselves, so we can live healthy lives.

In Illinois, the governor launched a state program designed to help pediatrics and other providers to meet children’s mental health needs. They federally funded $2.5 million in a partnership involving the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), the Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS), the Department of Human Services (DHS) plus the University of Illinois Chicago’s (UIC) DocAssist Program and the Illinois Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (ICAAP).

According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) in September, it’s 2023-25 biennial budget request, which seeks to address student mental health and expand support to students, includes a $235.8 million increase to support comprehensive mental health services for students during both in-school and out-of-school time and $36 million to expand aid for school-based mental health professionals. When it comes to Maine, they have a whole department for children’s behavioral health, and their program lasts until the child’s 21st birthday. They’ve had this program since December 2018.

Now, if you want to help with the mental health of yourself or your peers, there’s a lot you can do. For starters, if you feel like you need to talk to someone about your mental health, go to your counselor or principal and ask about seeing Mrs.Hyatt, (B127) but if it’s something urgent, you are welcome to knock at her door if she is not in session with another student(s).

As we all know, there can be many different mental health issues, but there are some she tends to see specifically at North “The most common mental health issues in our school are anxiety and grief,” Hyatt said. One of the main factors in this mental health crisis is the pandemic. It has taken a toll on everyone.”At first I noticed that there was a difference in me. I have had a little bit of anxiety, but I’ve never had a mental health problem before. When it came to covid, it pushed me over the edge, like it did most people. I became extremely anxious. When it comes to students it’s so much anxiety and grief we’ve always had, but it became more extreme with covid-19,” Hyatt said.

How can you identify when you are having trouble with your mental health? “I believe they identify themselves. I think strong emotions that interfere with how you do your every day business, that’s a mental health problem,” Hyatt said.

Something that often causes mental health issues is trauma. Traumatic events always cause a ripple in people, whether the trauma is abuse, neglect, or covid (worldwide trauma.) When it comes to helping each other and ourselves with these mental health issues, I believe that is as simple as being kind to each other, being mindful of how we treat our friends and people we don’t know, and checking up on each other.”

If teachers and students would like to learn more about mental health, they should contact Mrs. Hyatt, and she’ll be glad to help. “One of the things that I’m doing is, if the teachers ask me to do this, I’ll come into their classroom, and I’ll just teach the whole class how to breathe, what are the signs of anxiety, and more. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but outside of my room, there are affirmations people can pick. I’ve made videos about them,” Hyatt said.

Mrs.Hyatt also thinks it’s important to be able to identify emotions. Also, all around the school, there are boards that help you identify emotions and how to deal with them. So, if someone is too shy or uncomfortable with sharing emotions, they can use those boards, and they should help sort some things out,” Hyatt said.