Back to school, back to worry: The benefit your parent employees need now
Many families are in the middle of a particularly vulnerable time and in need of additional support as they work to forge ahead.
The last 18 months have had a devastating impact on child and adolescent mental health. As a result, many employees who are parents are actively managing the mental health needs of their children. Often, this is occurring even as they grapple with their own issues, making dedicated mental health support for the whole family one of the most valuable benefits employers can deliver to their people.
The start of the school year usually represents a period of transition that can be difficult to navigate under typical circumstances. Last year proved to be particularly challenging; more than 91% of the world’s student population weren’t able to attend school in person during the pandemic, according to UNICEF. With this disruption, activities critical to child and adolescent development were stopped in their tracks, blocking the interactions critical to emotional development, such as building relationships with peers.
Related: Delayed health care during pandemic taking a toll on many vulnerable children
As families head into a new school year, they may be encountering local outbreaks of the Delta Variant, continual changes in learning environments, and an undercurrent of global unrest and injustice. This uncertain environment puts many families in the middle of a particularly vulnerable time, where they find themselves needing additional support as they work to forge ahead.
Child and adolescent mental health needs have increased, and help is hard to find
One out of every 10 children and adolescents experience mental disorder globally, according to the World Health Organization. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports 1 in 6 U.S. children aged 2 to 8 years had a diagnosed mental, behavioral, or developmental disorder, while suicide is the second leading cause of death in 10 to 19 year-olds. Yet across the U.S., there are only 9.75 U.S. child psychiatrists per 100,000 children under age 19, which is less than a quarter of where we should be, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
This coverage and accessibility gap has left many families relying on emergency rooms for support, especially as mental health issues have grown in prevalence and severity during the pandemic. The CDC found the proportion of mental health-related emergency room visits by adolescents increased by 31% between March and October 2020. Girls have especially seen more serious issues; suspected suicide attempts among girls 12-17 rose 51% compared with the same months in 2019.
In addition to the care access challenge, it can be difficult for parents to differentiate appropriate or average responses to stress from more serious symptoms that indicate a need for extra support. A recent study by Lurie Children’s showed that 41% of polled parents said they didn’t know where to get help for their child’s mental health. Lyra Health found that another 31% of employees weren’t even sure if their employers had mental health benefits.
Despite these challenges, the good news is that a little help goes a long way for children and adolescents, and the earlier they get support the better. With early intervention and access to high-quality preventive care, many times the bigger problems that require more invasive solutions can be avoided.
This is where employers come in.
How to build a family mental health infrastructure at work
Employers who prioritize the mental health of their parent employees and their families can evaluate their mental health support benefits against three key standards to ensure they are providing quality child and adolescent care: accessibility, availability, and awareness.
Accessibility: Expert information on child and adolescent mental health care should be readily available to all employees, with a special focus on educating families on what to expect developmentally, and types of thoughts and behaviors would benefit from support from a mental health professional. My team at Lyra regularly partners with employers to support parents at work with a variety of resources, including workshops focused on child and adolescent mental health, webinars, blog posts, and other educational materials.
Availability: If employees do identify that more support is needed, a dedicated mental health provider that connects individuals to specialized child and adolescent care can help ensure that care is available when it’s needed. By matching employees to the right care from the start, employers can also help families find care quickly and easily, guiding them to the most clinically appropriate treatment to get better, faster. Because preventive care and early intervention is so effective for kids and teens, accessing high-quality support as soon as the need is identified is critical. Readily available support also makes it less likely that parents must later rely on safety nets such as emergency departments as issues progress.
Awareness: For your parent employees that are struggling at home, it’s likely consuming a good portion of their attention and energy, even while at work. Awareness means not only providing resources, but also training leaders to openly discuss resources with employees whose families are experiencing distress. By actively promoting these offerings, employers can make certain that there is never a question as to how their employees can get help, and that they will have the company’s support when doing so.
Benefits should be able to address unique familial circumstances and meet employees’ families where they’re at. By prioritizing the right kinds of care and support and breaking down barriers to access benefits, employers can help ensure that employees are able to care for the people that rely on them most, exactly when they most need it.
Katie McKenna is a clinical lead at Lyra Health and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who specializes in depression and crisis management in child and adolescent populations. She has 15 years of experience providing community-based mental health and crisis services to underserved populations. In her current role at Lyra Health, Katie consults with employers and managers on crisis management strategy for employees in distress, and offers clinical support to the clinicians in the Lyra Health network.
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