Student suggests that every school in Illinois ought to have a Mental Health Professional

 The Honorable Michael J. Coffey Jr.

E-1 Stratton Office Building

401 Spring St.

Springfield, IL 62706

RE: SUPPORT FOR SCHOOL-BASED MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELOR

Dear Representative Coffey, 

My name is [Student name], and I am in the process of earning my Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work from the University of Illinois Springfield. I am writing to bring your attention to an issue that I feel is very important in the Illinois school system. Within our primary educational system, we are lacking sufficient support for our students’ well-being and overall success. Students in our school system continue to struggle with their mental health. 

In recent years, we have seen a drastic rise in poor mental health among students. According to KFF, formerly known as The Kaiser Family Foundation, one in five adolescents report symptoms of anxiety or depression. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 22 percent of students surveyed reported that they seriously contemplated suicide and almost 10 percent attempted suicide. Twenty percent of these students did not receive any kind of mental health care because they were afraid of the stigma, they could not afford it, or they did not know how to access services. Students are also facing an overdose crisis. KFF mentions there were 722 adolescent deaths due to drug overdoses in the United States. These are problems that are affecting each and every student in our public education system.

I believe that every school should have a mental health counselor. Currently, schools provide students with a guidance counselor. A guidance counselor generally helps students register for classes, prepare for college, and understand their options after high school. They are also often tasked with caring for the mental health of their students. This can be a lot of responsibility for one person. If every school were to add a designated mental health specialist, students would have a specific person to see about their mental health issues. These mental health professionals would provide students with individual or group therapy, emotional support, substance use and social counseling, family support, and referrals to other services. 

In my personal experience during high school, our guidance counselor did not have the time or resources to spend on individual social, emotional, or mental health issues. I attended a rural area school that provided education to over five towns. Our guidance counselor was tasked with helping over 400 students. Our school needed a separate counselor who could have helped students with any mental health problems they may have faced. When my good friend lost her mother suddenly and tragically, she did not have the support at school that she needed. Her grades and mental health suffered. She turned to alcohol to help her cope. I believe she could have greatly benefited from a designated mental health professional, someone who would have been able to help her access the resources she needed.

In order to provide schools with enough funding to pay for these services, the money collected on sales tax revenue from cannabis sales could be utilized. According to a press release from Governor Pritzker, the state of Illinois brought in $417.6 million dollars from sales tax at adult-use cannabis dispensaries in 2023. According to Marijuana Policy Project, two percent of this revenue goes to public education and safety campaigns, and the highest percentage allocated is 35 percent to the General Revenue Fund. A portion of the percentage allocated to the General Revenue Fund could be reallocated to fund these services in public education. Adult use cannabis is now a huge industry in Illinois, and the tax revenue earned from this industry could help our children grow into accomplished adults.

The children in our schools are facing a great crisis. Mental health problems are reaching new heights, and we need services that can lead us through these extremely hard times. We need to make sure that children receive the help they need while they are in school to make sure they go on to become productive members of our society. For all the reasons mentioned above, I would encourage you to work with your partners in the legislature to come up with a solution to fund these endeavors in our public school system. If you have the opportunity in the future to support any bills related to student mental health, I would strongly encourage you to support those efforts.

Sincerely,

____Student name______

____Student street address_____

Springfield, IL __Zip Code___

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). Youth risk behavior survey: data summary and trends report. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/YRBS_Data-Summary-Trends_Report2023_508.pdf

Government of Illinois. (2024, January 11). Pritzker administration announces third consecutive year of record-setting growth for adult use cannabis sales [Press release]. https://www.illinois.gov/news/press-release.29494.html#:~:text=Sales%20taxes%20collected%20at%20Illinois,%2C%22%20said%20Governor%20JB%20Pritzker.

Marijuana Policy Project. (2019). Overview of the Illinois cannabis regulation and tax act. Marijuana Policy Project. https://www.mpp.org/states/illinois/overview-of-the-illinois-cannabis-regulation-and-tax-act/#:~:text=The%20more%20concentrated%20THC%20is,THC%20concentration%20higher%20than%2035%25

Panchal, N. (2024). Recent trends in mental health and substance use concerns among adolescents. KFF. https://www.kff.org/mental-health/issue-brief/recent-trends-in-mental-health-and-substance-use-concerns-among-adolescents/

This is a well-structured and argued letter.  It begins with an introduction of who you are, and then immediately you go to the description of the problem.  You support your description of the problem with some good facts you found from good sources.  Convincing.  By the third paragraph you are ready to tell your reader what you think we need.  Also helpful, you have a personal anecdote that strongly supports your case. Those stories are always especially convincing.  Your combination of using facts and stories is the best way to convince a politician.

Best of all, you have something to say about how the solution could be funded.

Illinois has nearly 4,000 schools.  Salaries and benefits for 4,000 mental health professionals would cost approximately 400 million dollars ($400,000,000) if typical salaries were $65,000 and benefits were $35,000 (health insurance, pension, etc.)  Actual salaries might range from $55,000 to $100,000, but we just need to estimate the number of mental health professionals and their average salaries and benefits, approximately.  

It seems to me that we have three tasks to accomplish in persuading people in our General Assembly to make sure every school in Illinois has a qualified mental health professional associated with the school: 

First, we need to point out that mental health professionals are effective in helping students in schools. Your letter establishes a good argument for need, but I wish we also had some evidence that the policy you suggest would address that need in a way that would make a significant difference in the lives of children.  I believe that it would, but I would be happier if I could point a politician to some good research that supports our shared belief.

Second, we need to suggest that $400 million to get mental health professionals in every school is a more effective and efficient use of $400 million spent in other ways to promote mental health among children. I cannot think of obvious alternatives.  Perhaps we could spend $200 million on part-time mental health professionals, or contracts with private provider of mental health services for each school, or more mental wellness and psycho-social developmental activities in schools, and get a similar result?  At any rate, some exploration of alternative approaches to the problem to give a politician more choices than status quo (do nothing; keep things as they are) and the one intervention you are suggesting (mental health professionals in every public school in Illinois) to show that your proposal is better than some other plausible interventions, either in being more effective or more efficient, or both.

Third, I think we need to make a case that the public have an interest in providing this (mental health support for children in public schools) as a public good and a thing that ought to be provided by the taxpayers of Illinois.  Some politicians, including the one to whom you are addressing the letter, may have ideological preferences for letting people privately handle mental health and wellness issues with their own resources, and they may be skeptical that the public have any business taxing and spending to provide mental health services in public schools.  I think we need to make a moral case that mental health services in public schools is a public good just as important as public education, provisions of roads, law enforcement protection from criminals, and health care assistance for those too poor to afford the cost of their own care.