Adolescence is often a time of intense feelings and emotional highs and lows. But these feelings can become severe and debilitating when disorders such as anxiety or depression take hold.
For more than a decade, feeling persistent sadness or hopelessness and thoughts of suicide have increased in teens, especially among girls and LGBTQ youth. Learn more about this issue.
Prevention
Preventive strategies focus on strengthening family relationships, providing education to teachers and caregivers, developing alternatives to risk-taking behaviors, and enhancing resilience and mental health skills. They can also involve increasing access to mental health services. Addressing the underlying drivers of health — such as poverty, food insecurity and poor nutrition, exposure to environmental hazards, racial and ethnic discrimination, and disparities in education and health care — are also key.
Prioritize data collection and analysis that identifies needs and trends, including those related to youth mental health. Elevate the voices of children and youth, incorporating their input and participation in policy development, funding, promotion, and evaluation.
Implement and promote evidence-based preventive mental health interventions, such as integrating screening for anxiety and depression symptoms in routine health checks and school-based health assessments. Expand and improve telehealth opportunities to increase access to mental health support services. Ensure comprehensive, affordable mental health coverage for all young people. Invest in initiatives that target at-risk populations, such as racial and ethnic minorities, individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, individuals with disabilities, and youth involved in the juvenile justice system.
Early Intervention
Effective early intervention strategies can mitigate the negative effects of mental health problems and help children to develop a whole set of personal strengths that support healthy development into adulthood. These strategies can include the provision of social and emotional support, educational programs that teach coping skills, and community-based supports to prevent or reduce substance use and other risky behaviours.
In addition, integrated youth mental health services can benefit from a clinical staging model framework that goes beyond the limited ultra-high risk paradigm for psychosis and increases capacity to intercept a range of lower risk cases including people with attenuated bipolar and borderline symptoms and mild-moderate depression. These approaches can also target specific populations at greater risk of mental disorders, such as racial, ethnic, and sexual and gender minority youth, individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and youth involved in the juvenile justice system.
It is essential to recognize the warning signs of mental health issues and seek early intervention from a specialist mental health professional. This can be achieved through comprehensive mental health assessments that evaluate a person’s emotional, cognitive, and behavioral functioning.
Treatment
The majority of youth experiencing mental health problems recover well, especially with treatment, family and community support and healthy relationships. But for many, especially those struggling with severe disorders, adolescence is a time of increased distress and behavioral challenges that can lead to poorer outcomes.
States should ensure that children and adolescents receive a full range of mental health services, including medication management, counseling and peer supports. State systems should work together, including school-based health professionals, juvenile justice systems, public safety departments, human services agencies and Medicaid agencies, to provide a coordinated response.
Increased awareness and education are needed to reduce misconceptions, bias and stigma about youth mental illness. This can be done through targeted efforts to educate groups that interact with youth, such as parents, educators, health care professionals and social media influencers. Increased training for caregivers and educators, such as Youth Mental Health First Aid, is essential. This course teaches adults who regularly interact with youth how to help someone with a mental health or addictions challenge and connect them with care.
Recovery
Many youth who experience mental health problems recover fully, especially with treatment and a supportive family, friends and community. However, adolescent mental health challenges often co-occur with other risk behaviors that lead to poor outcomes like drug use, violence and unintended pregnancy.
Addressing the social drivers of health, such as income and access to education, health care, nutrition and safe housing, can also help prevent mental health challenges in young people. Governors can drive progress on these fronts by directing legislative platforms to key issues, introducing supportive legislative proposals and orchestrating stakeholders across state systems.
Provide a continuum of supports to help students manage their emotions and develop resiliency, including implementing evidence-based prevention practices in schools, expanding school-based mental health services and supporting teachers’ and other adults’ mental wellbeing. Support 988, the national suicide and crisis lifeline, to ensure that every child has someone they can call for help and knows where to turn. Provide training and resources for youth and families to recognize and learn from difficult emotions, practice strategies to stay healthy and cope with stress and trauma.