Prepared remarks: Addressing Our Youth Mental Health Crisis, at the Colorado Education Initiative’s Hopeful Futures Conference (June 4, 2024)

The pandemic impacted us all, but especially young people. For young people, it was like pouring fuel on the fire of the already raging youth mental health crisis. That’s why the Surgeon General has called the state of mental health a crisis in America. For schools, this crisis is impeding the ability of students to learn and teachers to teach. And for communities and families, the effects of this burgeoning crisis are varied and devastating. In my talk today, I want to share what we at the Department of Law are doing about this crisis and our plans to uplift efforts by Colorado communities and schools to lean in on solutions.

How We Got Here and What’s at Stake

Before getting into the heart of my talk on solutions, let me start by reflecting on the state of youth mental health. There are multiple signs of how wrong things have gone for kids. Consider, for example, that after stable rates for anxiety and depression among American adolescents in the 2000s, they rose by over 50% between 2010 and 2019.[1] And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that suicides among kids between 10 and 14 tripled from 2007 to 2019.[2]  In short, the pandemic exacerbated an already tragic situation, with at least 1 in 3 high school teens reporting their mental health as poor and 1 in 5 of them considering suicide.[3]  During the pandemic, moreover, suspected suicide attempts among girls ages 12 to 17 rose over 50%.[4]

Recognizing the crisis in youth mental health, the Surgeon General issued a landmark advisory report in 2021. In it, he reported that “the challenges today’s generation of young people face are unprecedented and uniquely hard to navigate. And the effect these challenges have had on their mental health is devastating.”[5] He also pointed to social media platforms as contributing to this situation, calling out its “adverse effects.”  In conclusion, he called on leaders and communities to “lead with inclusion, kindness, and respect [and] lay the foundation for a healthier, more resilient, and more fulfilled nation.”

The Surgeon General also cited, as a driving factor, our national epidemic of loneliness.  Strikingly, he emphasized that the “mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.”[6] As with the teen mental health crisis, he called on leaders and communities to take “steps every day to strengthen our relationships” and to support “community efforts to rebuild social connection.”

For young people, mental health struggles may well be expressed differently than for adults. Experts have cited behaviors ranging from social isolation to substance use to self-harm as signs of how young people may be hurting.[7] For schools, mental health issues are increasing in concern and administrators are looking for strategies to help young people build greater resilience.  To help on that front, the CDC developed an action guide that offers school-based strategies and associated approaches that can help prevent mental health problems and promote positive behavioral and mental health of students.

In short, the CDC’s guide is designed to align with schools’ existing support systems and calls out two foundational elements to support this framework: better support for a healthy school workforce and family-school-community partnerships.

Addressing youth mental health is critical to our schools and communities. We are seeing more chronic absences, a lack of connection amongst students and between students and adults, students increasingly turning to substances as a coping mechanism, rising rates of suicide, packed emergency rooms, and more. I increasingly hear such concerns at community meetings on the topic across our state—from Pueblo to Delta to Durango to the San Luis Valley.[8] Our lawsuit against Meta, which operates Instagram and Facebook, is another response to this crisis, recognizing how its management of its social media platforms is contributing to this crisis. In this case, we are seeking to change how these platforms operate, recognizing how they are marketing to kids under 13, sending alerts to kids’ phones at all hours of the night, and driving kids down dark holes that are harmful to their wellbeing.[9] But we realize that this is only one important element of what must be a broader strategy to address youth mental health challenges.

The Opportunity Ahead

This year, our Department began to consider how to invest the almost $32 million we recovered for Colorado from suing JUUL for driving a teen vaping epidemic. After our initial conversations with stakeholders, we identified one important guiding principle—we wanted to invest the funds, as much as possible, to develop and implement preventive youth mental health strategies that would enable kids to live healthier lives and not turn to vaping in the first place. To that end, we issued two requests for applications—the first one (up to $6 million) available for non-profit organizations or government entities and the second one in partnership with the Colorado Department of Education (up to $11.4 million) for school districts and other local education providers. To lead this important work, we hired Alli Daley, who joined us with deep expertise in this area, to serve as our Director of Youth Mental Health Initiatives. We will be announcing the winners of those first two rounds of grants soon. For now, however, let me emphasize that we are truly impressed by the creativity and strength of the grant applications.

Today, I am announcing the most ambitious part of our strategy, which is designed to have widespread and sustainable impact. This fall, we are going to open a funding round—of up to $20 million—to support school-community partnerships to promote holistic youth mental health services and support. The opportunity to develop and advance partnerships between communities and schools is one we are very excited about—and we are inspired by all of the impactful and meaningful work done by those here today at this Hopeful Futures event. Notably, we’ve engaged in meaningful conversations on this topic around the state and have seen firsthand the commitment of so many leaders to developing solutions to the youth mental health crisis.

As the Surgeon General has made clear, youth mental health is in crisis. That means we need an all-hands on deck approach to design and support solutions. To that end, we are proud of our partnership with the Colorado Department of Education for round two of our grants and applaud the many impactful grants and programs they run to support youth mental health. Our future investments will operate in tandem with these programs, and those of the Behavioral Health Administration (BHA), including their investment in communities across the state to support youth mental health and their multi-year, cross-agency children and youth implementation plan.

As we move forward with this work, we are fortunate to work in Colorado where collaboration thrives and we have trusted partners to work with. The BHA, for example, has developed a number of promising strategies to advance youth mental health, including the Youth Mental Health Corps launched last month. This effort will work with business, philanthropic, and nonprofit partners across the state to train trusted young adults as mental health navigators in schools and communities. Moreover, the TRAILS to Wellness program, which has been working with students in three districts, will expand significantly in Colorado, enabling it to partner with more schools that are building resiliency programs for students. These two powerful case studies represent the type of creative initiatives we look forward to encouraging and supporting.

Another powerful example of the conversations happening around Colorado is an initiative of the Colorado Forum—which is composed of civic leaders from around the state—that took place in partnership with Pueblo County School District 70. This initiative engaged school and community leadership in a conversation about what steps could best support student development and learning. To support the effort, the Colorado Forum paid for a facilitator who supported the process and helped the group develop an overall plan for addressing youth mental health challenges in their school district. To further drive this work forward, El Pomar Foundation has provided grant support to Pueblo 70, enabling them to engage with its neighboring school district, Pueblo School District 60, and develop an impactful partnership on youth mental health. And to provide guidance to other school leaders considering such initiatives, Ronda Rein, the Superintendent of Pueblo 70, is drafting a blog post on how they approached this opportunity and has offered to talk with other school leaders about what made her group’s process successful.

Prior to opening this funding round, we spoke with several foundations about the possibility of supporting a similar development process for potential grant applicants. In particular, we asked whether they might consider investing in school and community-led efforts to help develop solutions that fit individual communities’ needs, creating partnerships that can promote better youth mental health and prevent youth from turning to vaping.

I am pleased to report that a number of funders have committed to underwriting facilitation, supporting collaboration, or otherwise aiding the effort to develop partnerships that will produce compelling grant applications. In particular, I am pleased to announce that the following foundations have indicated an interest in leaning into this work:

• The El Pomar Foundation
• The Telluride Foundation
• Caring for Colorado
• The Denver Broncos Foundation
• The Anschutz Foundation
• Gazette Charities
• Craig-Scheckman Family Foundation
• Rose Community Foundation
• Western Colorado Community Foundation
• Gary Community Ventures

And other foundations are considering how they can support this work this summer and in the years ahead.

In many communities, school districts and partners have already come together to address youth mental health. Our goals are to further catalyze such efforts and expand the work that can advance youth mental health and wellness. In other cases, this grant opportunity can provide the opportunity to spur collaboration and creative partnership between community members that may not have strong existing relationships.

Our confidence in the ability of school leaders to develop promising strategies is bolstered by what we have already seen across Colorado. Consider, for example, that Durango Public Schools has implemented a competency model and resilience curriculum that is making a positive impact;[10] that the Holyoke School District is working hard to support the building of more trusted relationships between students and adults;[11] and that, in the San Luis Valley, there is now an after-school and fifth day program to teach kids to fish and instill a love of reading.[12] And those are just a few of many programs in place that can be expanded, built upon, or inspire other innovations.

The competitive grant opportunity that we will launch this fall is purposefully broad and flexible in terms of inviting a range of school-community partnerships to advance youth mental health. It merits emphasis, however, that we do have some principles in mind. For starters, grant applications that involve partnerships between other school districts and/or partnerships with a community organization focused on youth mental health will be prioritized. Moreover, we also will prioritize grant applications that support multiple community-based organizations and multiple school districts, particularly ones where larger school districts work with smaller ones.  Finally, we are committed to supporting applications that, where possible, reflect perspectives and ideas that come from young people.

After we select the grantees and continue to learn about the leading programs either in place or on the drawing board, we will continue to build a community of practice focused on improving youth mental health. To that end, we are already starting to plan a summer 2025 conference to be held at Empower Field at Mile High. We are most appreciative that the Denver Broncos Foundation is willing to host this event, bringing together leaders on youth mental health from across our state, spurring greater dialogue, learning, and discussion on best practices. We recognize that we will learn a lot through the course of this funding opportunity and will plan to do all we can to spread those learnings and create connections between leaders in this field.

Providing over seven months in lead time for school-community partnership applications is an experiment by our department in innovative grant-making. Consequently, we are looking forward to seeing how this process plays out not only because it promises to yield compelling grant applications, but also because it can enable those without professional grant writers and/or the time, support, and resources to turn around applications quickly to have a better opportunity to submit a compelling grant. In short, this model encourages a more equitable and community-informed grant opportunity, enabling potential partnerships by providing more lead time to get organized and, most significantly, resources to develop thoughtful and well-supported proposals.

This fall, we will announce the specific requirements of this forthcoming funding opportunity to give communities time to collaborate and develop strong applications by the deadline in early 2025. I can share now that, consistent with our commitment to enabling all communities to have a full and fair opportunity to apply for such grants, we will divide them into three buckets: (1) for larger communities; (2) medium sized; and (3) smaller communities. While the exact figures could change, we anticipate that over the three-year granting period, larger projects that serve at least 23,000 students will be eligible for up to $2.5 million in funding. For medium projects that serve fewer than 23,000 students and more than 7,500 students, they will be eligible for up to $1.75 million. Finally, for small projects that serve under 7,500 students, they will be eligible for up to $750,000. With respect to communities with smaller populations, we are especially interested to support creative and innovative efforts on a regional scale that leverages benefits across school district lines. We are also, by definition, focusing on projects that not only involve school-based programs, but that also engage community partners.

* * *

At the Department of Law, we are committed to the concept of servant leadership. Like our work in opioid response, our approach to youth mental health is to be a facilitator, an enabler, and a trusted convenor. We recognize that the opportunity I discuss today is both only one step and not enough. Notably, next winter, we expect to have very worthy grants that we are not able to fund.  And we know that these grants—which we expect will be in place over the course of three years—will not provide a sustainable long-term answer to a long-term challenge. Nonetheless, this is an important start and will help point the way to the important work ahead. Thanks for your engagement and leadership on this work.

[1] https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-denver-233c9fc0-796d-4375-891b-24e8fafb272c.html?chunk=0&utm_term=emshare#story0

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db471.htm#section_1

[3] https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/wellness/story/teens-reported-poor-mental-health-pandemic-study-finds-91787976

[4] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7024e1.htm?s_cid=mm7024e1_w

[5] https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-youth-mental-health-advisory.pdf

[6] https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf

[7] https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Wellness/girls-mental-health-suffered-pandemic-data-shows/story?id=108748415

[8] See, for example, https://alamosanews.com/article/ag-weiser-speaks-and-listens-in-a-conversation-about-youth-mental-health

[9] https://coag.gov/press-releases/bipartisan-coalition-of-attorneys-general-file-lawsuits-against-meta-for-harming-youth-mental-health-through-its-social-media-platforms/

[10] https://www.durangoschools.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=3930000&type=d&pREC_ID=2333831

[11] https://www.hps.holyoke.ma.us/article/1414414

[12] The story of how Cindy Medina has served as the Alamosa Riverkeeper is outlined in this article.  https://waterkeeper.org/magazines/volume-14-issue-1/take-me-to-the-river