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When I first met my 14-year-old patient, he was presenting with severe symptoms of depression and anxiety. He hurts himself and thinks about killing himself. I asked him how long he had had the symptoms and he told me that they had been there for over two years and were getting progressively worse. His symptoms soon led his family to realize that something was wrong. Like many families, they don’t recognize the early signs of depression and don’t know what to do next.
Addressing mental health issues is complex. Stigma, lack of awareness, transportation issues, financial issues, availability of service providers, lack of health insurance and support are barriers that youth and their families face when seeking treatment. Because of these barriers, situations like the one described above are very common. Every time I treat a child with severe mental illness, I am amazed.
What could have been done sooner? What can we do as a society to better support our youth?
as if Boys and Girls Clubs of St. Joseph CountyWe are working towards a better way because all young people deserve it. With our new Emotional Wellness Program, we focus on providing preventive mental health services to help Club kids cope with life’s challenges, thrive and succeed.
We teach our children to be prepared for many things in life: what to do in case of fire, contagious, how to study, how to be a good teammate and leader. Why don’t we help them manage their emotions – what to do when they are stressed, anxious, angry or stressed?
Reactive mental health care doesn’t have to be what it is now. If we continue with this model, we will not have enough resources in our country or in our country to ensure that everyone gets the treatment they need. Through prevention, we can create culture change and help young people succeed and develop lifelong skills to become aware of and take control of their mental health.
At Boys & Girls Clubs, we are excited to be able to offer our preventative services with insurance coverage or screening to the 2,500 club kids we serve each year. Here, we can provide rehabilitation training, conflict resolution, anger management and suicide prevention. By making mental health care part of a child’s normal routine, we can reduce stigma. We can eliminate accessibility issues for families such as transportation and finance.
Change doesn’t happen overnight, but if the culture around mental illness doesn’t change, we are failing as a nation and a society. We must rise up, empower our children and invest in critical resources. We must continue to talk about mental health, model positive resilience and break down stigma. As Maya Angelou once said, “I can be changed by what happens to me, but I don’t want to be diminished by it.”
Erica D. Kelsey is the director of emotional well-being at the Boys & Girls Clubs of St. Joseph County.
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