Our Role—And Yours—in Addressing the Ongoing Youth Mental Health Crisis

Now more than ever, focusing on youth mental health is critical. As we know, the pandemic only exacerbated the pre-existing challenges youth are facing nationwide, and the need for more pediatric mental health services is clear and sobering.

Nationwide, mental health-related emergency room visits are up 24 percent among children ages 5 to 11 and 31 percent among those 12 to 17 years old. Suicide is now the second-leading cause of death for youths, and, unfortunately, Nebraska exceeds national trends for number of suicide deaths in adolescents ages 15 to 19.

In health care, we have the opportunity – and privilege – to change the system and have a significant impact on the way our youth and families experience mental health challenges. By reimagining the ways we think about mental health as an integral part of all medical care, we can set up the system to grow, meet the needs of families and even prevent future generations from experiencing intense mental health conditions. It’s our responsibility to help reduce the stigma around mental health, ensure families have adequate resources and continue strengthening the workforce pipeline.

By linking hands in this work and leading with inclusion, kindness and respect, we can make a difference – within our own teams and organizations, and across the country. Together, we can lay the foundation for a healthier, more resilient future for children and families.

So, where do we begin??

Talk about it and remember that your words matter.

As a licensed professional counselor and the new senior vice president of Behavioral Health at Children’s Nebraska, I’m passionate about helping people heal wholistically and ensuring behavioral health is integrated into all things. When you add behavioral health and wellness to anything, that’s where the magic happens because people are able to perform at their very best. And it all starts with an open dialogue — simply starting a conversation, checking in on a friend and empowering a culture of authenticity and vulnerability.

The truth is mental health is an essential part of one’s overall health—yet we don’t talk about it that way. There’s a lot of stigma and shame still attached to experiencing a mental health condition, and it’s a huge barrier to ensuring families seek care. Historically, we haven’t recognized behavioral health in the same way that we have medical conditions through the system of care—and we're catching up to that now.

Think about it: Getting our flu shot to prevent the flu is no different than someone talking to their therapist about feelings of anxiety and stress to learn coping strategies so that they don’t feel worse and develop an anxiety disorder. Likewise, we need to have behavioral health urgent care, just like we have a medical urgent care. I think that’s where people struggle: they don’t know where to go and have trouble finding a provider. A behavioral health urgent care ensures children and can be treated immediately.

By making authentic, transparent conversations commonplace—and being mindful of the language we use—we allow others to feel comfortable talking about their internal experiences and help them understand that they’re not alone. We want these conversations to be happening early and often, as early intervention is key to addressing the mental health crisis affecting children and adolescents across our country. ?

Meaningful partnerships and infrastructure investments are key.

Those meaningful conversations can open the door to treatment, intervention and, ultimately, healing – but we need to have the infrastructure in place to support this work. Not having well-developed and supported infrastructure has historically been another barrier for mental health care. Children and adolescents in particular face critical care shortages. Health care systems need support to expand care and meet the needs of the community. Having the parity of insurance coverage for mental health conditions—like with medical conditions— is an important barrier to overcome, too.

At Children’s Nebraska, we’re grateful to have strong private-public partnerships enabling us to forge new paths. Notably, in partnership with the Mental Health Innovation Foundation, we broke ground on a Behavioral Health & Wellness Center?at Children's in August of this year. As the mental health needs of Omaha area youth increase, the vision of the center is to create a beacon of hope for children and families by providing a collaborative world-class model of comprehensive behavioral and mental health services, co-located with medical health needs—ultimately, offering a seamless continuum of care.

The new facility will open in early 2026 and was generously funded by donors who recognize the need for expanding children and adolescent mental health services in the Omaha area, along with the State of Nebraska through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the City of Omaha and Children’s.

As a new leader at Children’s, seeing the strong, strategic community partnerships already in place was incredibly encouraging to me. People are linking arms to bring this work forward and make intentional investments back into our community – and into the wellbeing of children, teens and families. It’s inspiring to see the collaboration and problem-solving taking place. None of the challenges we face around health care—whether related to cost, access or the workforce—will be solved by ourselves alone.

Find creative strategies to support the workforce pipeline.

A robust mental health workforce is a critical factor in providing necessary services and treatment to children facing mental health challenges. Some families cannot find mental health care because of the lack of providers in their area, and some families have to travel long distances or be placed on long waiting lists to receive care.?Eighty eight of 93 counties in our very own state are considered to have a shortage of behavioral health providers and one-third of counties don’t have any at all. Without access to mental health providers, children struggling with mental health issues are left without treatment and at risk of experiencing long-term health effects.

So, how do we bring clinicians into the field and keep them in a health care setting? How can we help these professionals remain resilient? How do we design the system to look more like a place of safety and wellness to avoid burnout?

Behavioral health is an incredibly rewarding field in which to work, and we need to work together to strengthen and support this workforce pipeline by offering competitive compensation, creative benefits and a supportive environment. We need to have clear pathways for young learners to get excited about pursuing a career as a psychiatric nurse or therapist —and to know if they go this route, they can support their families. ?Additionally we need to partner with our universities to make it easier for the existing workforce to get trained in the behavioral health field if they would like to change roles. ?

Developing a working environment that values the mental health of our employees will also spark more investment and interest in the field. We spend so much of our time at work, so we need to ensure it’s a place of psychological safety where leaders know that the mental health of team members matters just as much as their physical health.

With team member wellbeing as a leading priority, Children’s has deployed a robust, contemporary wellbeing strategy – aimed at supporting its people, personally and professionally. A few key People First investments include the addition of Howie, a full-time facility dog dedicated to the emotional wellbeing of Children’s team members; an Employee Assistance Program providing confidential emotional support, work-life solutions, legal guidance and more; the THRIVE program offering real-time, confidential support to help address stress and related emotions felt by team members; and resources to address social determinants of health, to name a few. These unique offerings have been a game changer for our workforce and Children’s is proud to be the only health care system in Nebraska to be named a 2023-23 gold recipient of Mental Health America’s Bell Seal Award for Workplace?Mental Health.

Organizations that invest in the mental health and wellbeing of community members—and?team members—are going to have the greatest impact. We all play a role in addressing the ongoing youth mental health crisis. Individually and together, we have a stake in the health and wellbeing of future generations. At Children’s, we aim to lead the way to improve pediatric mental health in our region – and we invite you to join us. What steps are you taking today for a brighter, healthier tomorrow?

Renee Rafferty is the Senior Vice President of Behavioral Health at Children’s Nebraska. She is passionate about advocacy and building innovative, impactful programs. Renee oversees the strategic growth and operations of critical behavioral health services, including the planned?Behavioral Health & Wellness Center at Children’s.

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