New report details what may be causing youth suicide crisis

COLORADO – A new report from the Colorado Attorney General’s office takes a look at what may be causing the state’s youth suicide crisis. The report is almost 90-pages long and it specifically lists stress factors like rigorous school day schedules that don’t allow children any time to decompress and cyberbullying from social media. Key findings:   Risk factors attributing to youth suicide:

• Pressure and anxiety about failing.
• Social media and cyber bullying.
• Lack of prosocial activities.
• Lack of connection to a caring adult.
• Judgement and lack of acceptance in the community.
• Substance use, mental health disorders and trauma history.
• Adult suicides in the community impact youth.

Barriers to suicide prevention:

• Not enough resources to effectively implement youth suicide prevention, intervention and postvention activities.
• Each county faces lack of resources and funding for public health and social services programs.
• Lack of equitable distribution of resources across agencies.
• Lack of mental health providers in these communities who accept Medicaid.
• Communities with more mental health resources have few providers who are trained to work with youth or the providers only accept adults.
• Stigma associated with seeking help.
• Stigma against LGBTQ+ individuals limits the places and resources from which those individuals seek help.

Mental Health Colorado says the report is going to be helpful in their efforts to pass about a half-dozen proposals during this year’s state legislature. Several of those bills include ideas to provide more mental health care for kids in school.