Pandemic exacerbates lack of mental health resources in US

WASHINGTON (TND) — Despite repeated warnings on the decline of mental health and a lack of resources to address it, much of America is still without the tools experts say they need to meet the crisis at hand.

Numerous studies have found mental health is declining in children and adults since the pandemic’s outset and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found an increase in alcohol-induced deaths in 2020.

Lawmakers from both parties have started to introduce and negotiate proposals to deal with what professionals call a mental health crisis. However, turning those into a law to be signed by President Joe Biden could be a long way off.

A packed legislative schedule in an election year where the minority party is already expected to pick up seats and potentially take the majority creates a difficult environment for bipartisan negotiating.

Congressional committees in both chambers have held hearings on mental health with a bipartisan focus. So far it hasn’t yielded any results, but sustained attention is a promising start, according to advocates.

"The amount of investment that we need to truly and adequately respond to people with mental health conditions is enormous," said Jennifer Snow, national director of government relations, policy and advocacy at the National Alliance on Mental Illness. "And in part, that's because for decades, people with mental illness have been getting the short end of the stick when it comes to the mental health system that we have."

Snow said Congress has held more hearings over the last several months than ever before.

The pandemic and conversations about it have been brought to the foreground after two years of illness, death and isolation.

“The pandemic made discussions about mental health very commonplace. Suddenly, whereas before, we wouldn't talk about feeling a little depressed or lonely or a little bit — losing it,” said Dr. Mitch Prinstein, chief science officer for the American Psychological Association. “With our patience with our ability to concentrate, that's something I think everyone talked about pretty freely with lots of people around them.

So now that now that that rabbit is out of the hat and we all realize just how important our daily lives are and our mood is to our day-to-day functioning, what kind of commitment are we going to make to do something about it?”

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra recently called on Congress to back up the administration’s efforts with long-term funding for mental health.

“One of the things that we're doing that I hope will be instrumental in letting all of us, including these children, get through COVID is that we're going to be devoting far more resources towards mental health care, making sure that families and these children have access to the mental health services they need," Becerra said in an interview with CBS.

Some steps are already being taken by the federal government, including the release of more than $100 million from the Department of Health and Human Services to fund 988 call centers. The new three-digit suicide-prevention hotline number is set to launch nationwide in July.

Some states are warning they are not prepared for its launch and need funding to get it staffed and ready to receive calls. In his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden called for nearly $700 million for local crisis centers to follow up on calls.

Congress provided some additional funding early in Biden's term with a stimulus package that gave a temporary boost to mental health programs. Advocates hope that funding serves as a foundation for more permanent steps in the future.

"It's temporary dollars, and hey, we think it's wonderful, but ... those temporary increases don't make up for the fact that we've had decades of underfunding in mental health," Snow said.

Exactly what programs to institute, how much should be spent and how it will be paid for are subjects of debate in Washington.

“The problem is that it requires the kind of financial investment that we haven't put into mental health since World War II. That’s when we built the [Veterans Affairs] system,” said Prinstein. “We started the National Institute of Mental Health, we built psychology departments at every college campus around the country I just wish that we can do something for today's youth that even comes close to what we did 70 years ago for returning veterans because they're all deserving of mental health care.”

A place where there is broad agreement between the White House, Congress and experts is a lack of mental health professionals. The shortage is already showing in the nation’s schools.

“We have nowhere near enough school psychologists or clinical or counseling psychologists to be able to meet every school right now,” Prinstein said. “We have about one school psychologist for every county in the United States. So that means that in many cases, they have tens of thousands of children for one school psychologist.”

Simply providing money will not be enough to get more professionals, as it will take time to train and license them. Some workarounds being discussed are opening up a bigger range of professionals to perform counseling and expanding telehealth, which is already becoming more popular due to the pandemic.

Getting a system to meet the nation’s needs may require complete reworking.

“This is a serious look at the way that we treat mental health in this country. America is uniquely bad at this,” Prinstein said.