Students fight for mental health hotlines on ID's

Transcript:

Anne:

Welcome to Education Beat. I’m Anne Vasquez, executive director of EdSource. Student mental health on college campuses is a growing concern. It accelerated when COVID forced the closure of school campuses and increased social isolation. Lawmakers and college officials are putting more focus on how to better support student mental health. Many colleges have expanded counseling services for students and have hired more counselors. Some students are speaking up and taking action. They’re coming up with their own ideas for legislation and even writing the bills themselves.

Kimberly:

I think a lot of students may feel discouraged by like the political processes at times. But I feel like if we recognize the power that we have to actually change these institutions to help better serve our most basic needs, then I think we could feel more empowered.

Anne:

Here is this week’s Education Beat with host Zaidee Stavely.

Zaidee:

When Kimberly Woo started college at UC Berkeley, she felt very isolated. She felt anxious about meeting new people and she was overwhelmed by the stress of school.

Kimberly:

I really was just crying so much I could not get out of bed. I didn’t feel like I wanted to eat. And I didn’t feel like moving or doing anything.

Zaidee:

Kim tried contacting the campus mental health center once, but the staff never returned her call. When the pandemic hit, the feelings got worse. She went back home and began doing college classes online.

Kimberly:

I didn’t really talk about mental health issues with my family. Because that kind of topic is sometimes like silenced by Asian American communities. And definitely like by my own family at times. It’s just something that we don’t really talk about. For me even, I guess like gaslighting myself thinking that like these problems didn’t exist. It wasn’t that bad. And just like feeling that I could work through it.

Zaidee:

The feelings came and went, but when her depression was bad, it began to affect her schoolwork as well.

Kimberly:

And I have just constantly been feeling really like restless, I guess, in different ways. And couldn’t sleep much. And just feeling a lot of like those feelings of depression, anxiety just like coming up and like feelings of like worthlessness just like clouding my mind. Clouding some of my judgment.

Zaidee:

Eventually Kim was able to get in touch with a counselor at Berkeley. But she also got really passionate about the issue. So much so that she decided she wanted to do something to help support other students who struggle with depression or anxiety. Then one of her roommates mentioned how it would be helpful to have mental health hotlines on the back of student IDs.

Kimberly:

And I was like, oh wow. That’s like a really interesting idea. And I think that’s really important because like that would’ve been really helpful for me at least like freshman year of college. Because I had to do that research to look it up. And it would’ve been really important seeing that on student IDs. And on the back of the student ideas instead I would see like the police department phone number. Which the police isn’t the best at addressing mental health issues. And actually can provide a lot of trauma for communities of color, especially like black and brown communities.

Zaidee:

This is Education Beat, getting to the heart of California schools. I’m Zaidee Stavely. This week, students fighting for mental health. Kim got together with other students across California who are part of an organization called Generation Up. And she helped write a bill to make California colleges and universities include campus mental health hotlines on the back of their student IDs. It’s assembly bill 2122. My colleague Carolyn Jones wrote about it for EdSource. Hi, Carolyn.

Carolyn:

Good morning, Zaidee.

Zaidee:

So explain to me what assembly bill 2122 does.

Carolyn:

If it passes, it would require all 23 campuses in the California State University system to put a 24-hour mental health hotline number on student ID cards and also the entire community college system. It would be optional for University of California because the legislature doesn’t have authority over UC. The UC regents do. But it would be strongly encouraged that UC does it. So it would provide 24-hour access to mental health counseling. And also it would encourage all colleges in California to set up mental health centers. If they don’t already have them.

Zaidee:

How bad is students’ mental health right now? How many high school and college students are dealing with mental health issues?

Carolyn:

Well, according to all the research that’s come out lately, the most recent research, and I think it’s well over half of high school as well as college students said that they have suffered serious or persistent depression or anxiety during the pandemic or over the past couple years. It’s a huge uptick from pre-pandemic. And it could be that people are more comfortable talking about it. But I think as we all know the pandemic has been really hard on people’s mental health, the social isolation, the uncertainty, and then a lot of people’s lives were completely upended by having loved ones become ill or pass away from COVID. Or people being out of work for long periods of time or losing housing or having to move or having their plans changed rather dramatically. So it’s a lot. A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control found that 9% of high school students had actually attempted suicide, which is a shocking number. So it just underscores the urgent need for any kind of mental health services.

Zaidee:

When the pandemic hit Leo Corzo-Clark was a junior at Albany High School near Berkeley.

Leo:

When the pandemic happened, it really became extremely exhausting for myself, for a lot of my friends. And I had a lot of friends who really felt like going to school just wasn’t worth it at the beginning of the pandemic that were just really tired and really exhausted. I had a lot of friends experience severe issues. I lost a couple friends to mental health issues in 2022.

Zaidee:

Two of Leo’s friends committed suicide. He feels strongly that mental health support needs to start long before people even begin thinking about suicide.

Leo:

A lot of the focus that is currently on mental health and mental health policy and mental health support is really centered around suicide prevention. But there are so many very small things that are not always noticeable that have to take place. And have to lead up before a person gets to that point where they consider taking their own life. And those small things are the things that are largely ignored or brushed off. And the reality is that if you are like only keeping track or paying attention, when students are taking their lives or attempting to take their own lives, then you’re far too late.

Zaidee:

Leo was appointed as a student member on his school board. And in that capacity, he got involved with writing and advocating for mental health resolutions to allow excused absences from school for student mental health days. He’s now part of the same organization that Kimberly Woo belongs to. Generation Up.

Leo:

A silver lining of the mental health crisis that students faced during the pandemic is that it gained like national attention and visibility to people in power who could change that. So that really inspired me to take advantage of that opportunity and make sure that like necessary reforms were enacted for before the moment passed.

Zaidee:

So Carolyn, this isn’t the first bill that looks at student mental health. Can you tell us about some others that have been passed recently?

Carolyn:

Oh yeah. I mean, during the pandemic, and then since the pandemic began, there’s been just a slew of mental health legislation and funding to hire more counselors, to expand services, social emotional learning is all geared towards student mental health. A lot of money set aside for schools and colleges to set up partnerships with local health organizations, whether they’re community clinics or county health departments. And a lot of the issue too is billing. Because students have no money. And so you need to set up an apparatus where Medical can be billed or that these students have access to either free counseling or subsidized counseling through Medical or through some other county subsidy. So there’s a lot being invested in that to kind of reduce some of the red tape and make it more streamlined. I mean, it should be. And I think what everybody wants is that if a student is feeling like they’re in bad shape, they should be able to walk into a clinic and get to see someone right away and not have to fill out mountains of paperwork and wait three weeks. And maybe you get a call back and maybe you don’t. Or maybe the responsibility is on you to follow up. So I think that’s the direction everyone wants to move in, but yeah, it’s taking a little bit more time than people would like I think.

Zaidee:

So this particular bill was written by students who are part of this organization Generation Up. How do they come up with the ideas for the bills that they’re gonna write in a particular year?

Carolyn:

Well, that was interesting to me too. I mean, they’re realistic. I mean, they’re not gonna say, you know, every student deserves their own private psychologist, you know. They look at things that they think are gonna pass and they try to find a legislator who will sponsor it for them. And so they work closely with legislators and they want things that are not particularly controversial. Because they wanna make sure it’s gonna get through the process. And things that aren’t going to cost a lot of money, but will reach the maximum amount of students. And so that’s how they came up with this idea. They have a few other bills that they’ve put forward this year realted to student political empowerment. One of them would give high school students one or two days off a year to participate in political activities, either going to a rally, campaigning door-to-door, being a poll worker. So that was cool. Another one would give full voting rights to student representatives on school boards.

Zaidee:

That would be a big deal.

Carolyn:

Yeah. So yeah, that’s what they’re focused on.

Zaidee:

Getting involved in writing bills to improve support for student mental health has been empowering for both Leo and Kim.

Kimberly:

In high school. I never believed I could have this kind of power. I thought I would have to be elected to pitch a bill idea, to be a part of the legislative process. So for someone like me, who is like 20 years old, who’s a student and advocating for this, that is honestly really like breathtaking to me, it’s indescribable. I feel like if we recognize the power that we have to actually change these institutions to help better serve our needs, our most basic needs, then I think we could feel more empowered, not just by our institution, but also by our education.

Zaidee:

Leo says when he was advocating for student mental health days, he and another student from San Diego were often the only two high schoolers attending legislative meetings

Leo:

We’d have to deal with like coalition meetings being scheduled during school hours. Or like having to say to committees be like hey, we have lunch from like 12 to 12:50. So can we, can we have it then. We’d sometimes have to like double zoom where I’d be in like math class on my computer and then I’d be like testifying in a hearing on my phone. Yeah, hopefully my math teacher isn’t listening to this. But it was tough. And it’s definitely common to be underestimated or tokenized. Like, oh it’s like the adults doing all the work. And then here’s like little Timmy who can, or Leo, or Zach who can share his story to give you the sob story. And then now listen back to the adults

Zaidee:

Getting bills and school board resolutions passed though he says feels great. At one point a school district official told him he couldn’t find any sample language for a mental health days resolution in the California school board association database.

Leo:

And I responded, oh yeah. That’s because students wrote it. It wasn’t the adults. It was the students who did that. And so knowing that we are, we are students who are often overlooked, I think students are the primary stakeholders in any school district, in any education system that students are not overlooked. Having sort of overcome that age obstacle and be able to tell the adults like, oh yeah, like that was us. It feels pretty great.

Zaidee:

Kimberly Woo has more ideas. She wants to advocate for more counselors on high school and college campuses, for example, and more education about mental health for student and professors.

Kimberly:

There should be orientation about mental health issues. Because I was, for example, my orientation was about SVSH so sexual violence and sexual harassment prevention, which is really, really important. I really think that we definitely need that. But there also should be mental health education for teachers as well. And for like graduate student instructors, for resident assistants, so RAs, or just for like anyone going through the university process so that we all not only learn more and have more awareness on what mental health is, but we also know what resources are provided at our university. And for teachers and professors to be more accommodating on these aspects, if they are actually trained on what this looks like.

Zaidee:

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of Education Beat, getting to the heart of California schools, a production of EdSource. You can find Carolyn’s story at edsource.org. Our producer is Coby McDonald. Special thanks to our guests. Leo Corzo-Clark, Kimberly Woo and Carolyn Jones. And our director Ann Vasquez. Our theme music is from Blue Dot Sessions. This episode was brought to you by the California Endowment. I’m Zaidee Stavely. Join me next week and subscribe.