Treat children's mental health now, upstream

A student once sat in the back corner of my communications class for more than half a semester and never said a word.

He came to class, did not cause a problem, and did his best to disappear.

At the midway point, I met with him during student conferences. I asked gently what was going on. Class participation was a large part of the grade, and he had not participated at all.

Without making eye contact, he told me in a hushed voice that he suffered from anxiety and panic attacks. He had managed to get through high school mostly by staying quiet, but college was different. There was an expectation that he would participate, speak and function more independently.

Then we talked about the speech he would be required to give.

"I can't do it," he said.

I teach communications at both Long Island community colleges. I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist or social worker. But after more than 20 years of teaching college students on Long Island, I know what I see.

More students are arriving in college anxious, overwhelmed, distracted and unsure of themselves. Many are afraid to speak in class. Some struggle to meet deadlines, not because they lack intelligence or motivation, but because they live in a constant state of catch-up. Some work nights. Some are caregivers.

Increasingly, when students select speech topics, many choose to speak about mental health. They could speak about anything, but many now select topics like anxiety, depression, trauma or the pressure young people feel to hold themselves together.

One student who was usually engaged and upbeat hesitated for weeks over her topic. She first considered safer "how-to" topics. After class, when everyone else had left, she asked whether it would be OK to talk about mental health medications, including their benefits and side effects. It was not her first choice. But it was the one she needed "permission" to say out loud.

That is what the children's mental health crisis looks like when it reaches a college classroom.

Newsday's news division recently reported that the final New York State budget did not include $200 million advocates sought to improve access to mental health services for low-income children, even though the state is under a legal settlement requiring it to strengthen those services in the near future. The money would have raised Medicaid reimbursement rates for community-based providers like counselors and social workers.

This should not be a partisan issue, nor about assigning blame to individual elected officials. New York has made important investments in mental health. But if children are still on waiting lists and families still cannot find care, the work is not finished.

What I see in college did not begin in college. These issues build over time. By the time students reach my classroom, they are expected to think critically, work independently, speak publicly, manage deadlines and advocate for themselves. Those are reasonable expectations. But for some, the foundation was never fully built.

When we fail to provide children with timely mental health support, we do not avoid the cost. We move it downstream: to colleges, emergency rooms, families, employers and, most painfully, to the young people themselves.

Albany needs to find the resources. Children's mental health cannot be treated as something to get to later. That is when they arrive in classrooms like mine, still waiting for help they should have received years earlier.

This guest essay reflects the views of Mark J. Grossman, a Long Island-based communications consultant and adjunct professor of communications at Nassau and Suffolk community colleges.