Youth Mental Health: What Works?
FROM THE LOCAL NEWS NETWORK"Youth mental health: What Works?" is the Local News Network's deep dive into the youth mental health crisis in Maryland and beyond, focusing on solutions that have proved to help troubled young people. Funded with a $7,500 grant from the Solutions Journalism Network's Student Media Challenge, the project focuses on innovative programs in public schools and communities in Maryland and elsewhere. The project includes a deep dive into the state's expanded youth mental health effort under the Blueprint for Maryland's Future, and also includes a look at youth mental health programs in each of the state's 23 counties as well as the city of Baltimore. About this project.
Featured Stories
This school banned cellphones six years ago. Teachers — and many kids — couldn’t be happier.
One common sight in high schools across the country was and always is absent from the halls of San Mateo High School in California: cellphones.
Anne Arundel schools pioneer rapid-response program for teens dealing with substance abuse
Karen Siska-Creel, Anne Arundel County’s school health and support director, knows from experience that if a problem pops up in the community, it won’t take long for it to appear in schools. When the opioid epidemic began to spread in…
Youth mental health? There’s an app — many apps — for that. But are they effective?
A little bird helps Sarah Mann deal with her anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, but it isn’t a talkative parrot or a mockingbird. It’s a virtual avatar on Finch, a self-care app Mann has used at least once a day since…
As young Americans struggle with mental health, online support surges — including in Maryland
Adolescents across the country have increasingly suffered from anxiety and depression over the last 10 years, and school officials in Prince George’s County noticed the same trend locally. So when the county’s public school system needed to support its struggling…
To improve youth mental health, these programs start by educating parents
Melat Wondimagegen was not the parent she is today when she first stepped off a plane in February 2019 to start a new life in the United States. As an Ethiopian immigrant and mother of an 11-year-old and a 2-year-old,…
Maryland students aim to prevent school violence with help from Sandy Hook Promise
Since the creation of the SAVE Promise Club at Oakdale High School, students have run multiple advocacy campaigns in their school, as part of a student-led effort to prevent the worst from happening.
College students move across state lines — and lose access to therapy as a result
Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified Denise Takakjy. She is the co-chair of the American Mental Health Counselors Association’s Public Policy and Legislative Committee. The story has been updated with that information. Eli Greene, a senior animal science…
Machine learning — in Maryland and elsewhere — opens new possibilities for suicide prevention
The Reddit thread that caught Philip Resnik’s attention posed a potentially life-saving question. “Formerly suicidal Redditors, what’s something that kept you alive a little while longer and helped you to get through the dark times in your lives?” the post…
Parents often struggle to find help for troubled youngsters — but this Maryland program can help
HAGERSTOWN, Md. — Going into her toddler’s annual check-up at Opal Court Pediatrics, Mallory Churchey worried about his behavior. Her youngest child, 3-year-old son Bronnsen, was having unusual tantrums and outbursts. “I just knew it was not normal,” said the…
Schools can screen students for behavioral health issues – but many are reluctant to do so
After Achilles Bardos learned about the internet in the 1990s, he thought to himself, “Why not in psychology?” A school psychology professor, Bardos talked with his colleagues about using the web to quickly collect data on student behavior. A few…
‘Playworks’ reinvents recess as a learning experience
PHILADELPHIA — You won’t find swings, slides or a kickball field outside Rhawnhurst School. Instead, the school’s “playground” is a vast expanse of barren blacktop with just a lone basketball hoop. Yet at this aging two-story elementary school in this…
Despite earlier proposal, youth mental health initiatives see minimal cuts in Maryland state budget
Maryland mental health advocates and providers are relieved coming out of this year’s legislative session, where state lawmakers decided against a drastic cut in funding to the state’s year-old, big-money program aimed at improving the mental health of its young people.