UIS Students Deserve Better Mental Health Support on Campus

 There was a night I won’t forget, not because something major happened, but because I sat in my car after a long day of work, classes, and parenting, and felt completely emotionally drained. I stared at my phone wondering if I should reach out for help, but I didn’t. Not because I didn’t need it, but because the last time I tried, I hit roadblocks, waitlists, automated replies, and silence.

That quiet moment of exhaustion isn't just mine. It’s a reality for many students at the University of Illinois Springfield. We are expected to juggle academics, jobs, families, and personal lives, but when it comes to support, especially mental health, too many of us are left to carry the load alone.

We know that mental health struggles on college campuses are rising. The Healthy Minds Study (Lipson et al., 2023) reports that over 60% of college students met the criteria for at least one mental health concern. But this isn’t just a number. It’s the classmate who stopped showing up. It’s the group member who never replied. It’s you. It’s me.

What we currently have on campus is not enough. Students talk about long waits to see a counselor, a lack of diverse support options, and feeling like mental health is an afterthought. When help isn’t accessible, the message we hear is: “Your struggles aren’t urgent enough.” That is not okay.

If a student broke a leg, we wouldn’t ask them to limp for weeks while waiting to be seen. Yet emotional wounds often go untreated until they become crisis. That’s a failure of compassion. And regardless of your political beliefs, compassion and responsibility are values we all share. Conservatives often emphasize personal responsibility, well, how can students be responsible for their success when their mental health is neglected? Liberals stress equity, how is it fair that some students have to drop out or suffer silently because support isn’t available?

We deserve a campus culture that prioritizes mental well-being. Not just in words or awareness events, but in staffing more counselors, offering after-hours services, and making mental health support as normal and accessible as academic advising.

Here’s what I’m asking you to do:
Email your student representatives. Attend SGA meetings. Share your experiences. Demand that UIS invest in better mental health resources. Even just telling your story can help change the narrative and show decision-makers that this isn’t a side issue, it’s central to our success.

Mental health isn't a luxury. It's a necessity. And it’s time UIS treats it that way.

References
Lipson, S. K., Zhou, S., Abelson, S., Heinze, J., Jirsa, M., Morigney, J., Patterson, A., Singh, M., & Eisenberg, D. (2023). The Healthy Minds Study: 2022-2023 Data Report. Healthy Minds Network. https://healthymindsnetwork.org/research/data-reports/

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.   

Student wants more peace rooms in high schools

 Dear, Governor Pritzker

 My name is [Student_Name]. I am from a small town named Thawville in Illinois, and I am a student at the University of Illinois in Springfield. I am aware of your work with the education system, including your efforts to strengthen childhood education and make higher education more accessible. I appreciate your initiative to improve the quality of Illinois schools. A prevailing concern in education is the state of student mental health. Multiple high schools in Chicago and Springfield have begun to utilize social-emotional learning environments also called “Peace Rooms” in their schools where students can come for support working with a mental health professional. It would be beneficial to grant money to expand this service to more schools in the state.

I’m writing this letter to acquaint you briefly with some of the mental health issues faced by young people in Illinois, explain some of the things we can do to help them, and urge your support for any legislation or budget allocations that will support adolescent well-being.

 Since the Covid-19 pandemic multiple studies conclude that students have been experiencing higher rates of depression and anxiety. The “My Resilience in Adolescence” (MYRIAD) study in the UK compared a group of children who were in the study before COVID with a group that was surveyed after COVID and found large and significant declines in mental health and increases in depression.  The main protective factors that seemed to help children were better school climates (more supportive schools), and strong home connectedness (better relationships among persons in the home). Poor mental health in students leads to more absentees, lower grades, and a poor school climate. The Chicago Health Atlas tells us that as of 2021, 40% to 51% of Chicago students in public high schools reported feeling so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that they stopped doing some usual activities (in the previous 12 months—this was a self-reported incidence of depression in the past year). That’s a terrible situation. 

The Centers for Disease Control has a clearing house with information about evidence for things that schools can do that are most likely to help adolescents (What Works in Schools). Illinois teachers can consult the Classroom WISE to learn more about what they can do to encourage well-being among their students. The IDEAS Center in New York under Kimberly Hoagwood suggests ways to improve the quality of state-delivered mental health care services for youth. The Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network (MHTTC) also offers guidance and training on how to make schools healthier for students and staff.  Here in Illinois, the Illinois Department of Human Services,  under your leadership, provides links to mental health resources for students and their families, as well as many mental health grants.

Under your direction, school staff who engage in continuing education to keep their licenses must routinely receive mental health first aid training (Public Act 101-0350 from January 2020). Illinois students can take mental health days. The Screening, Assessment, and Support Services (SASS) given through the Crisis and Referral Entry Services (CARES) provides mental health services to youth in crisis. Two years ago, in May of 2022 our state released the Illinois Children’s Mental Health Plan, and last year (in February of 2023) our state published a Blueprint for Transformation, which offers us a dozen strategies for improving mental health services and behavioral healthcare for Illinois children.

Most schools have counselors that are there for student support including college planning, SAT help, and one-on-one chats. School counselors are an important part of our schools; however, student mental health is still struggling, and the state’s plan for system transformation has a goal of improving access to school-based preventive and mental health services. On way to do this would be to increase the number of school counselors and school social workers. The recommended counselor to student ratio is one to every 250 students, yet according to a report done in 2022 the ratio in Illinois was one counselor to every 408 students. This workload leads to more burnouts in counselors and leaves students without proper support. Furthermore, school counselors are not always trained to handle the wide array of issues students may be facing. 

Teachers are also getting more involved in finding ways to support their students. Psychologists have been developing training to teach teachers how to react during times of student distress. One training that was developed by Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network and the NCSMH is a free online course called Classroom WISE. This is a step in the right direction. Similarly to school counselors, teachers have a lot on their plate and do not always have the time or knowledge to help a student working through things like depression and trauma. 

I would especially like to draw your attention to Peace Rooms. These are described as a safe space where students can talk through difficult times and regulate their emotions with a mental health professional before returning to class. These rooms can be utilized for individual use or to work through things as a group. Peace rooms can serve multiple functions such as a space for students to talk through interpersonal issues, a safe space for before and after school, and an alternative to out of school suspensions. Students can not always rely on parents to support their mental health needs and school staff do not know what home looks like for each student. Peace rooms allow students to take initiative with their mental health and seek out support with ease.

Concerns regarding the peace rooms include miscommunication about when to refer students to the peace room, and some staff do not agree on using peace rooms as an alternative to suspensions. There are also concerns that students may not use the rooms appropriately and may take advantage of being out of class. 

A school in Chicago partnered with UMOJA to implement a peace room for their students. A 12th grader named Alijah (“AJ”) shared his experience with the peace room. He shared that he has no one to talk to about what he was going through and he had recently experienced the death of his brother. AJ expressed appreciation for the support he got from Asher Miller, a specialist through UMOJA, who helped him recognize that he could grieve at his own pace. AJ said that it “was like someone finally understands that I want to succeed, but mentally I’m not as prepared as everyone else.” Staff note that before UMOJA was implemented, the suspensions were higher and there were more fights. The peace room has also been used for teachers to change the way they work with students. The peace room also fosters connection between students and teachers and creates a more positive climate at school. 

Overall teachers have reported fewer absences from students, less suspensions and less fights after utilizing peace rooms. It would benefit teachers and students to expand the implementation of peace rooms across schools in Illinois and I hope you seriously consider this option. 

A key problem in implementing the excellent plans you and your administration have put in place to improve mental health for adolescents is that the state does not raise sufficient revenue to find what needs to be funded. Recently the base operating expenditures by the state government were $48.3 billion (FY 2024 budget), but when you look at what we really need to do for K-12, higher education, DCFS, ending functional homelessness, and improving our mental health and substance abuse prevention and treatment systems, we should probably be spending about $53 billion.  The revenue we get from sales taxes, income taxes, and corporate incomes taxes (approximately $41.4 billion in fiscal year 2023) is too low by about $5 billion. 

Further, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy finds that Illinois has one of the most regressive ways of collecting revenue for local and state government, with the lowest quintile of Illinois residents paying about 14.8% of their income in various state and local taxes, while the top 1% typically pays only 7.3%.  I hope you will pursue a serious overhaul of the state tax system.  Personally, I would recommend abolishing the general sales tax (keeping excise taxes on things like gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol, and so forth), as poor people pay too much on sales taxes, and states that have no sales taxes enjoy many advantages in their retail industries. I also wish the state would establish a property tax cap of 1%, and allow more local expenses to be covered through a distribution of state income taxes, to relieve the reliance on high property taxes.  

To generate revenue while ending the general state sales tax and reducing property taxes, we would need to dramatically increase our flat rate income taxes, up to something like 14%, I should think.  However, we can decrease the burden of these income taxes by significantly raising the general standard deductions, increasing the state child tax credit, increasing the state earned income tax credit, and generally allowing more tax deductions for charitable giving, medical expenses, and educational costs. The tax system overhaul ought to bring the total local and state tax burden for the bottom quintile down from 14.8% to something under 4%. The middle 60% should see only the slightest net tax burden decrease (from something like 12.1% now to something closer to 11.5%), and those in the top 1% and the top 20% should see their tax burden increase, but not above the the taxes paid in New York (13.5%), perhaps instead something like 12% to 12.5% (the top quintile now pays about 9.4%, and the top 1% now pays about 7.3%).

                                                                    Thank you for all the fine work, [student_name]. 

Splett, J. W., & Conversation. (2023, October 10). Doubling counselors in schools won’t solve kids’ mental health crisis—here’s what else to do. Fortune. https://fortune.com/2023/10/10/doubling-counselors-in-schools-kids-mental-health-crisis-solutions/

Abrams, Z. (n.d.). Kids’ mental health is in crisis. Here’s what psychologists are doing to help. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/01/trends-improving-youth-mental-health

Tool: Create a high school peace room. (2020). https://schoolguide.casel.org/uploads/sites/2/2020/11/2020.11.10_High-School-Peace-Rooms_FINAL.pdf 

Liang, C. T. H., Gutekunst, M. H. C., Liu, L., Rosenberger, T., & Kohler, B. A. (2023). Formative evaluation of Peace Spaces in a middle school: Teacher perceptions and student usage. Psychology in the Schools, 61(1), 155–172. https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.23045

ND Film Group. (2019, March 18). UMOJA - One student’s restorative justice journey in an Umoja peace room [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6inVs4Op8I

Montero-Marin, J; Hinze, V; Mansfield, K; et al., (2023, Sept 21) Young People’s Mental Health Changes, Risk, and Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic. JAMA Netw Open. 2023;6(9):e2335016.  doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.35016 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2809780 

Student suggests raising revenue to end homelessness by increasing taxes on gaming

 The honorable J.B. Pritzker 401 S. Spring St.

Springfield, IL 62704

February 29^th, 2024

Dear Governor Pritker,

My name is [_Student_]. I am a senior at the University of Illinois Springfield, in the Bachelor of Social Work program. I am currently taking a social welfare and policies course that is shining some light on the detail of how the legislation effects policies in social work. I want to thank you for signing House Bill 2831 (the HOME IL Bill you signed on July 26th of last year). I appreciate your continued support support in advocating for the unhoused population and our goal to end homelessness in the state of Illinois.

I watched your budget speech, and appreciate many of your ideas, including raising the tax on wagers placed at sports books. I wonder though, why are we not also raising the taxes on all gambling types? Being new to Illinois, the first thing I noticed right away is there are gaming areas in almost all of the gas stations, restaurants, and bars. As an advocate for mental health and addiction prevention I don’t understand the need for these facilities at all. However, if they must exist I do believe they need to be heavily taxed right along with the alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana industries. These taxed sources alone will provide enough funds to increase the budgets necessary to be able to end homelessness in Illinois.

I noticed that a recent (2023 report on 2022 revenue) report from the Illinois Gaming Board reported about $1.8 billion to the state from gambling, and I read that recently (in the past few months) you have suggested raising the taxes on gaming wins from 15% to 35% to raise another $200 million in state revenue. 

By my calculations, providing emergency shelters, permanent supportive housing, rapid rehousing, caseworkers, mental health and addiction counseling workers, and coordinators to work with landlords and nonprofit housing development corporations, the state could functionally end homelessness with an expenditure of less than $500 million, if it was spent on the most effective types of services using efficient housing-first approaches. Not all of that money would need to come from the state, as the federal government and local governments as well as private philanthropy all have roles to play.  Remember also that the $500 million needed to end homelessness is not just money for housing, it’s also money for a system of community mental health care, support, and addiction & recovery counseling. And, we don’t need $500 million in new spending, we just need additional spending to bring total efforts to about $500 million, which is, by my rough approximate estimate, about $200 million.  

Springfield currently has a great model of permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing programs. Helping Hands of Springfield recently expanded and are achieving great things in the area. Springfield is moving toward ending functional homelessness, following a pattern set by Rockford, Illinois. The rest of the state needs this type of program to be able to achieve the goal of ending homelessness all together in the state. In order to tackle homelessness and maintain a proper prevention level, I believe we need to greatly expand in this direction. Adding in a robust team of professionals to follow the individual through their journey and provide guidance. This will not only bring the individuals off the streets, but also help in the prevention of their becoming homeless again. This team should consist of medical professionals, social workers, intensive case managers, legal representatives and a interdisciplinary team that looks at each individual’s specific needs.

One option many people will suggest is to turn an old building into a housing unit to provide housing for those experiencing homelessness and be “done with it”. You can see that sort of thinking with the slogan of the Poor Peoples Campaign (“The USA has 5 vacant houses for every homeless person”). Having one large facility with multiple unhoused individuals being permanently placed together is not a great solution. In fact, the most significant caution about permanent supportive housing is that for the program to work, persons who need permanent support must be distributed around a community, and not concentrated in confined neighborhoods. The main reason is that many of these individuals are suffering from a great level of mental illness, physical disabilities, and substance use disorders. While aiming for recovery, a group setting of individuals without monitoring is a recipe for failure. These individuals need the assistance and guidance to be able to achieve life long stable housing, and they need housing distributed around communities so that they can interact in friendly ways with many persons who are not suffering from addiction, depression, or psychotic illnesses. 

In conclusion, I’m urging you to redouble the efforts you and the General Assembly have already made with the HOME IL bill of 2023, and follow through on your proposal to raise taxes on gambling profits and winnings.  Use the $200 million in additional revenue our state generates from the increased public capture of profits and winnings from gambling to end homelessness, and in so doing, set up Illinois as a model for the nation, where gaps in mental health services, drug addiction treatment, and housing policies have been filled and the citizens of Illinois can live in a state where the 25th Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is respected and implemented.

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. 

Local police shooting of man suffering from mental illness inspires student reaction

  On March 5^th of 2021, police in Chatham, Illinois, responded to a call that a mentally unstable man was wielding a knife. During the interaction, the police officer shot Gregory Smalls, leaving the 30-year-old black man in critical condition. This senseless tragedy, which took place a stone’s throw from our own community in Springfield, illustrates the desperate need for reform in law enforcement policy and practice.

One policy that I think should be implemented to prevent similar tragedies involves adding a mental health department to the police force and changing how officers are outfitted during routine patrols. Police officers are armed with guns but sorely lacking in the kind of training needed to deescalate volatile situations. While police officers do face danger situations, most of their interactions in the community would be better served by providing them with nonlethal means of subduing suspects. Instead of ready access to guns, police should be outfitted with Kevlar protection to minimize their risk. Possession of a gun does not actually reduce their risk; if their assailant has a weapon as well, they have no protection against the bullets. Thus, having a gun available in the vehicle as a last resort and body armor for protection is likely to result in less danger to both officers and suspects.

However, no amount of body armor can provide the kind of training that would enable them to handle situations such as Gregory Small’s. Instead, trained social workers or other mental health professionals should be available to respond alongside their militant counterparts. If someone had been present who had knowledge of mental illnesses and how to resolve conflicts safely, Gregory might have ended the night in a mental health facility, getting the help he needed, rather than in critical condition in the emergency room.

However, I also think that police training needs to focus on serving the community and bringing suspects to justice rather than the current mentality they seem to express, that of viewing members of the community as potential criminals to be uncovered rather than citizens who deserve respect and protection. Another important element to include in this new training is anti-bias education. I believe that many police are unaware of the implicit biases they hold that cause black citizens to be targeted and incarcerated at disproportionate rates as compared to their white counterparts. 

As a member of the African American community, the discrimination rampant in our criminal justice system is a source of anxiety and fear for me. Although I am lighter skinned and rarely experience being targeted by law enforcement, I have a family that is not. My brother, my nephews, and my cousins all have darker complexions, more obviously African hair textures, or both, and each news article reporting the assault or murder of Black citizens fills me with fear for my loved ones, and empathy for the survivors. Although being a target is rare for me, I too have been singled out by police in small rural towns. Black Americans face discrimination in many forms, and one of the single best ways America could show its commitment to ending racism would be to take decisive steps to prevent more black deaths at the hands of police. 

It needs to be said: the treatment your brother, nephews, and cousins have experienced is wrong, and we should not accept it, and law enforcement professionals who care about their mission of protecting the public and the Constitution should also not tolerate this.  You have been singled out by authorities because of your background, and that is wrong.  

The situation of Greg Small, Jr. hits close to home.  He and his brother and dad were active in the Scout Troop I've volunteered with, and my sons camped with him and his little brother on many occasions. 

There are a variety of biases that come into play in police interactions with persons who experience mental illness and also have African heritage. Anti-bias education that is based on good scientific evidence that it can reduce bias should certainly be part of training and professional development for law enforcement personnel. I think we also need to change the way police create a professional self-image.  If they had more focus on "protect and serve" and a deeper ideological commitment to public safety, I think that would help. Other goals and ideals seem to be too powerful in may law enforcement sub-cultures.

Here are some good articles about this issue:

https://policy-class.blogspot.com/2023/04/reaction-essay-on-child-poverty.html

https://www.wandtv.com/news/springfield-police-department-begins-new-co-responder-initiative/article_76c8a624-9774-11ed-98f3-8b6e05363ae0.html  and https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/awards/15pbja-21-gg-04324-ntcp describe the new initiative in Springfield, Illinois

Peoria is doing something similar: https://www.wcbu.org/local-news/2022-02-14/peoria-police-unitypoint-mental-health-staff-could-respond-to-911-calls-together 

Here is what is going on in Nashville, TN: https://www.nashville.gov/departments/police/executive-services/alternative-policing-strategies/partners-care 

Eileen Molloy Langdon wrote an article about this for an Illinois law-enforcement trade magazine (see page 12: https://www.ilchiefs.org/assets/Command/2020_November_Command_FINAL_optimized.pdf 

VICE did an article on this a few years ago: https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3zpqm/these-cities-replaced-cops-with-social-workers-medics-and-people-without-guns  

SAMHSA distributes money to fund treatment programs

 The policy I chose was Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) was has awarded $123 Million in grants for a multifront approach to combat the overdose epidemic. I find this to be a very good cause. In the past year, overdoses have risen by almost 31%, which I am sure is a direct result of Covid. During the lockdowns, Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous were not operating on an in-person group therapy model that so many addicts rely on. Like many other things, they were forced to do zoom and some addicts depend on the face-to-face model. One thing they preach in the meetings is not to isolate yourself because that could become dangerous, yet they were forced to isolate and not receive the face-to-face support so many of them rely on day in and day out. 

There are six different approaches including in this grant, two of which are coming to Illinois. Obviously, I wish they could go all throughout every city in the United States but I guess in the eyes of some, not enough people have died in order for there to be more on the ground action. One of the approaches that is reaching Illinois is “Medication Assisted Treatment for Prescription Drug and Opioid Addiction (MAT-PDOA)”. These grant funds will help to expand the medicated assisted treatment (MAT) services in Chicago. The goal of this grant is to increase the number of people who get MAT services and decrease the illicit opioid use/ prescription abuse. The state of Illinois is also receiving money for First Responders and community members at the state and local government to be accurately trained to administer Narcan, and help to refer people to treatment and recovery support services. 

As stated earlier, I do wish we could see some more on the ground support for not only the ones in active addiction but funding to treatment centers and recovery programs. While I whole heartedly love seeing bills and funding come through grants like these, I would always like to see more. I think they are sometimes pushed to the side because people are uneducated on addiction, but if we could just reach even 30% more of addicts it would make a big impact. 

Here is the link for the SAMHSA website, https://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/press-announcements/202109130300

The page mentions that some programs will get funding for five years, and that makes me wonder if the $123 million is only the amount to be released in 2021. For example, ten tribal entities will be getting $331.2 over five years (averaging $6.6 million per year per tribal entity). Also, is the $123 million a significant increase over what was granted in 2020 or 2019?  With 93,000 drug-related deaths in the past 12 months, I hope this is a significant increase. 

The scope of the problem calls for more investment than $123 million, but the page mentions that there was also a release of $250 million to community behavioral health center back in July, and there would be $1.5 billion for the Community Mental Health Services Block Grant program and another $1.5 billion for the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant program.  Would $2 billion or even $3 billion be more reasonable figures for funding those block grants, given the magnitude of the problem and the cost in human lives lost?

Prisons are not Adequate Providers of Mental Health Services

  I will always remember when I first learned about mental illness and the affects it has on the individual suffering with it. I was in the 7^th grade and was utterly fascinated to learn about the types of illnesses, but yet so saddened to hear about the treatment they receive. After learning I had friends and family members who suffered from mental health issues, I had a strong urge to become an advocate about emotional health. I try to keep myself educated on pressing issues which deal with mental health and treatment. Therefore, I was extremely upset to learn about the mentally ill being placed in prisons.

Prison is not a mental health facility, so the individuals who suffer with these problems do not belong there. According to Carolyn Zezima’s (2020) article titled “Incarcerated with Mental Illness”,  at least more than two million people with mental health issues are arrested yearly, and that many of the ill may stay in jail longer than someone who does not have a mental illness. “Roughly 9% of the population (more than 210,000 individuals) experiences serious mental illnesses including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or major depression and fewer than 13% of these individuals receive care in the public mental health system” (Zezima, para. 4). This is extremely disheartening to learn about, especially since prisons seem to contain more people with poor emotional states than psychiatric facilities do. “Experts say jails and prisons have become the nation’s largest psychiatric facilities” (Zezima, para. 1). Furthermore, the problem with the mentally ill being incarcerated deals with treatments. These individuals either receive poor treatment, or no treatment at all. 

I remember reading an article in a social problems class I took at the college I transferred from, and this article described about penitentiaries using solitary confinement as a punishment. This is when they isolate the prisoners from others, and it is honestly horrible, especially for persons suffering from serious mentally illness. The way solitary confinement affects persons with mentally illness are very severe. According to Teddy Basham-Witherington’s article “Class Action Hero: Denied Mental Health Care, Patrice Makes a Stand for Human Rights”, Patrice Daniels was a mentally ill inmate, and he was placed in solitary confinement many times. Daniels discusses how he “feared his own mind” as his symptoms worsened, and even got charged for illegal contraband when he harmed himself (Basham-Washington, 2018). This honestly makes me really mad when I read about this because Daniels was crying for help, but the guards completely ignored him. Daniels’ illness continued to go untreated as he was constantly denied treatment by the Illinois Department of Corrections (Basham-Washington, 2018). Being denied treatment is wrong on numerous levels, and is honestly a violation of human rights. Therefore, the mentally ill do not belong in prisons.

Moreover, I feel that in order to address this problem is to advocate for the mentally ill. I feel that more people need to actually educate themselves on mental illness. There are people in this world that associate mental illness with being violent, and the shootings that have occurred in the past have not helped resolve this issue. This is why people need to get rid of that stigma and realize that not everyone who suffers from an emotional problem is “violent” or “crazy”. In addition, a huge number of the homeless population deal with poor mental states and go untreated. So, I believe that there needs to be better funding for mental health facilities and maybe better funding could grant easier access to treatment for these individuals.

References

Basham-Witherington, T. (2018, October 05). Class Action Hero: Denied Mental Health Care, 

     Patrice Makes A Stand for Human Rights. Retrieved September 29, 2020, from 

     https://www.impactfund.org/social-justice-blog/ patrice? 

     gclid=Cj0KCQjwk8b7BRCaARIsAARRTL4wmQTSWHcMrYU8shnpH7m

     Q3Gf_NUfNT1NyjxdmU77TR8nRFenljJcaAs5PEALw_wcB

Zezima Carolyn Zezima, C. (2020, August 12). Incarcerated with Mental Illness: How to Reduce 

     the Number of People with Mental Health Issues in Prison. Retrieved September 29, 2020, 

     from https://www.psycom.net/how-to-reduce-mental-illness-in-prisons

I find it a nightmarish wonder that we are still using solitary confinement with prisoners. The “skilled tormenters” of Illinois are still applying tortures that we have known do no good since the 1820s!

From my cousin George Ives’ book about penal methods written by him over 110 years ago:

...Thus the new torture was begun; but the “reformers” reached a deeper level of horror when in 1818 the legislature of Pennsylvania resolved to construct a penitentiary for enforcing solitary confinement without even work ! At another prison a trial of solitary confinement was made upon eighty convicts. In 1822 they were shut up for ten months each in a little cell 7 feet long by 3-1/2 feet broad, and were not allowed to leave it at any time or for any purpose. ...

...But the new torture, solitary confinement, was never meant to be applied that way, and never was by the skilled tormentors. In the experiments just glanced at, the zeal of the too ardent disciples of “discipline” defeated their object. Death and insanity were so wholesale and universal that no amount of figures and “philanthropy” could explain staring facts out of the way....