music) - Hello and welcome to another edition of "10thirtysix" here on Milwaukee PBS I'm Portia Young.

May is mental health awareness month, so we're dedicating this next half hour to the mental health of our children, teens, and those who take care of them.

Health experts say the COVID-19 pandemic certainly has made mental health care more urgent.

According to Mental Health America youth mental health is worsening.

9.7% of youth in the US have severe major depression compared to 9.2% in the previous data.

This rate was highest among youth who identify as more than one race.

Children's Wisconsin reports that in any given year about one in five children in our state will experience a mental disorder.

And children and teens in Wisconsin are hospitalized for mental health conditions at four times the national rate.

Mental health is an issue we've dedicated much of our storytelling to here at Milwaukee PBS.

We called attention to this growing problem in our national award winning documentary "Kids in Crisis: You're Not Alone" looking at how for diverse teams navigated through their mental health journeys and how their stories help others to speak up and get help.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Rory Linnane co-producer of our documentary caught up with are now four young adults to find out how they're doing.

- Hi everyone, it's good to see you all.

Thanks for joining us virtually, I wish we could all be together but it's still good to see you all.

So I wanna hear about how you've all been doing during the pandemic.

If you could tell me about some of the things that have been challenging during the pandemic and also any silver linings what you've learned or how you've grown through this time.

So Barrett, can we start with you?

How have you been?

- I've been good.

The beginning of quarantine was a little rough for me.

It was hard to be isolated from everyone but I changed my meds and I went back to my therapist and started working out a lot more and then when I got back to school I played volleyball in the fall and this spring.

And so I really learned that I need to stay active and I kinda took care of myself when I needed to and took some personal time for the first time in a long time.

- That's awesome, I'm so glad you're taking good care of yourself.

TJ how have you been?

- I been good, it's definitely not what I thought my first year of college would be, but I'm lucky I have a great roommate and good friends on campus.

Wish I could have made more friends it was just super limited and a lot of my classes were online anyways but it's been a good first year and we've been surviving, so that's good.

- Yeah, definitely, and Alex how have you been?

- Oh, well, it was tough in the beginning of quarantine mostly because of the loneliness.

But over time I started developing new skills, like baking, exercising with my mother.

I have been getting a lot of info on bee farms and stuff since we're moving to Atlanta in a couple of weeks.

So we wanna have our personal bee farms and chicken that's why my mother want to go.

So for me, it hasn't been too bad and later time to cope with but in the beginning it was definitely tough not being able to go and see your friends or go outside and do stuff.

- So since our first documentary aired I know a lot of you have had people reach out to you and tell them what your stories meant to them.

What kinds of things have you heard from people?

And also since then, have you been up to any other kind of advocacy work with mental health?

- Yeah, it's been kinda hard for us to do mental health stuff on campus 'cause we try to keep social distancing as much as possible, but I still get people reaching out to me through my Instagram and then more people have started to go to the mental health Instagram I made, which is good.

I have a lot of good resources on that, but I've still been getting a lot of feedback and a lot of people still commenting on my Facebook posts and tagging me in mental health stuff and inviting me to as much as I can to be around mental health and asking me to speak and so it's been good so far.

It's been good and my advocacy has stayed up, but it's been hard on campus.

- Yeah, yeah, well, thanks I'm glad you've kept it up as much as you have, it's really helpful to a lot of people, and TJ how about you?

- Yeah, same here.

Everything's pretty much virtual on campus.

My girlfriend, Sarah runs NAMI on Oshkosh Campus so I've been helping out with that every once in a while.

Last year the day that everything closed because of the pandemic we were supposed to have an event at Oshkosh that ended up getting canceled because of the COVID.

So now we're starting to get back into planning that so hopefully we can get that going shortly.

- Well, I'm still doing mental health advocacy.

My company Build-A-Bow recently got a honorable mention for the Force for Positive Change because I was advocating youth mental health.

Still doing youth mental health advocacy and I still do get lots of replies and feedback from the film that we did.

- I'm glad to hear that and congrats on the award that's awesome.

What kind of advice would you give to young people who are having a hard time right now.

- I think the main thing is just to keep yourself active and it's super hard to keep yourself going if you don't have those other people around you but I think it's really important just to push yourself and not let yourself get into that downward slide and then if you do get into that downward side not having any shame in reaching out for help.

- I think that my best advice would be to try and stay like physically active.

It's hard when we're cooped up in our house or wherever you are.

So just try your best to figure out things to do to keep your body moving because that helps your mind so much and it just makes such a difference.

- Yeah, that's so true, Alex, how about you?

- My advice would basically just, during COVID find things that you like to do find things that interest you just try out new things that you see online.

For me, it was drawing comic books and doing arts tutorials and stuff like that that kinda kept me gaged.

- I look forward to someday hopefully seeing you all in person again, but I'm glad that we could gather like this virtually.

So that's great to see you see you later.

- It was great to see you as well Rory.

- Bye guys.

- Bye.

- Reyna Saldana who appeared in the documentary was not available to update us on camera, but wants you to know she is living and working in the Madison area.

The journeys of Reyna, Alex, TJ and Barrett in our documentary helped create two new state laws adding the suicide prevention hotline to student ID cards and providing more grant funding for Peer-to-Peer Prevention Program in schools.

State Senator Joan Ballweg co-chaired the bipartisan speakers task force on suicide prevention as a state representative.

we checked back with her about any possible future legislation.

- There are several initiatives that are in the budget.

They're still continuing appropriations when it comes to some of these grants that I've been talking about already grants that are available that were actually put in back the Walker Administration working with higher education.

I think that they are continuing to be focused on this obviously what happened this year when it came to youth, what they would expect their school year to be disrupted and we know that without some of those connections not only with friends, but teachers and counselors just going through the regular process of things has been detrimental to kids.

So we have some proposals that we did in our suicide prevention task force also to have some more additional folks who would train the trainers when it comes to school personnel to be able to catch things, to be more observant.

I think that's something that we're gonna continue to look at, to help in those kinds of situations.

- Study show that peer to peer conversations are critical in managing youth mental health.

In our "Kids in Crisis" documentary we featured a peer to peer resiliency program called REDgen, which stands for resilience through education for a new generation.

There are now 21 local school REDgen chapters "10thirtysix" producers Scottie Lee Meyers and Journal Sentinel reporter Rory Linnane visited one of the newest chapters at Riverside High School in Milwaukee.

- Hi Susanna how are you?

- [Susanna] I'm good and you?

- I'm great nice to see you today.

- [Susanna] It's nice to see you today too.

- Thank you.

- [Rory] It's Wednesday morning and Maggie Holt grieve a psychology teacher at Riverside University High School starts her weekly REDgen meeting from home.

- May is mental health awareness month, and again with REDgen the theme for this month is mental health and unpacking shame.

Our last meeting last week, we did watch a bit of this intro video but some of us weren't there.

So I thought we quick watch that we'll have a little discussion and then we'll make a plan for an activity that we can do for mental health awareness month.

(bright upbeat music) - [Rory] Riverside became one of the newest REDgen chapters last year.

REDgen Executive Director Brooke Talbot, said the local nonprofit dedicated to youth mental health is growing its footprint throughout Southeastern Wisconsin.

- We have REDgen school chapters.

In the Milwaukee area we've got about 20 middle schools and high schools who host our chapters.

And the schools that host chapters, what they do is they have groups of students usually about 20 students, and they meet regularly with staff advisors and they work off a curriculum that we offer called the Roots of Resilience, and that curriculum helps to educate students, provide opportunities for connection and reflection and then really empowers us students to go out into their school community and look at changing culture.

When in life things are gonna happen that are struggles and when they do we really want kids to have the tools to be able to get through those times of adversity.

- [Rory] There is no shortage of adversity this year and it may be having a big impact.

Our recent CDC survey found that 25% of parents whose children have been learning virtually for the majority of the pandemic reported their child experienced a decline in mental or emotional health.

- They've been struggling, but I think that's to be expected.

A lot of my conversations with students have been more around struggles with keeping up with classes but then also extra responsibilities at home right now our older students at the high school have been asked a lot of times to help with their younger children's education too since parents have to go work.

So I do see stigma sometimes getting in the way of students wanting to talk to somebody or reach out for more professional help outside of the school setting.

I think stigma is decreasing and what really helps that is clubs like REDgen.

- [Rory] Many Riverside students have felt this firsthand.

- Well, I honestly think that a lot of kids have been impacted, especially me cause you a lot going on around me, I'm not used to the environment of not being in school.

- I used to be like a really good student but my grades have not been so well throughout the entire year.

It's been really stressful for me and a lot of other students are seeing and hanging out with family has also been like stressed because like nobody wants to like go out and my parents don't let me go out much because of COVID.

- I've been teaching psychology now for almost 10 years, and so it's come to my awareness over the past few years that students really wanted an outlet to just kind of more of a relaxing outlet to kinda get together and talk about issues surrounding mental health.

- [Rory] As the REDgen advisor Holtgreive leads the curriculum each week.

She's also piloting a new tool from the Kognito company.

It's called Friend2Friend, a game-based online suicide prevention simulation designed to help students navigate difficult conversations about depression.

- [Narrator] Using role play with virtual peers Friend2Friend helps build skills and self-confidence.

- [Maggie] And I think it was a positive exercise because it took away the awkwardness of doing a role-play person to person when it's such a sensitive topic.

And you could also see different reactions.

- [Rory] Between the virtual simulation game, weekly conversations and creating a space to talk about mental health, REDgen does seem to be making an immediate impact at Riverside.

- I think REDgen has helped me out a lot.

I honestly think that it made me dive deeper into a lot more things and just pay more attention to my mental health just being in tune with other people.

- I think it's really important to have things and events like REDgen going on throughout schools and things like that, because it's really important to let people know that they're not alone and it's not just like adults doing it because like kids can't always connect with adults but there's actually things in there that are like, okay I'm going through this, are you going through this too?

- [Rory] It was a tough year, but Holtgreive is excited about the possibility of students returning in the fall and growing REDgen presence and impact throughout the school.

- We have decided to start a club during the middle of a pandemic, so we were a 100% virtual.

It was a big challenge, but we definitely persevered.

I feel that it went well and I think we have a far way to go, like we're just getting started, and I think we have a lot of potential.

- We've heard a lot about the importance of speaking up talking with someone to maintain or improve your mental health and wellbeing more so now than ever before.

I had the chance to talk with Dr. Jenny Walczak, the Clinical Director of Mental and Behavioral Health at Children's Wisconsin about how to talk with your kids and what signs of mental stress to look for especially during this continuing pandemic.

In your opinion is the mental health crisis that now and ahead of us is it a bigger challenge than the actual virus for kids?

- Yeah, so we know kids were affected by COVID-19, they were not impacted to the level that adults were.

So I do think that this mental health crisis and the results in trauma from this crisis is really a forefront for kids.

There were so many children and adolescents that missed milestones this year, graduations, prom just milestone events that they are never gonna be able to get back.

And I think that's one of those pieces that's gonna have those long lasting effects on kids.

I also wanna mention too, and I think it's important to point out, we are not talking about all kids, right?

So some kids have dealt really well with the pandemic.

Children inherently are resilient and so some kids, this is just they've rolled with it and they've been pretty good and bounce back from all of these hurdles that they've encountered.

And then we have kids who maybe already had mental health issues going into the pandemic, where the pandemic really exacerbated those mental health issues.

And now we have also a population of kids who really never had mental health issues and are experiencing them for the first time and I think it's so important that having these conversations because a lot of parents are dealing with this for the first time and they're looking for guidance 'cause they're not sure what do.

- Right, and that is my next question.

What are the things that parents should look for?

What should they watch for?

- Yeah, so I think you know your child best.

So if you notice that something is off or something just doesn't seem right, first piece is to just have a conversation with them.

Some of the things that we're looking for are changes in their mood or behavior and these are changes that are persistent.

So the child just doesn't seem to be snapping out of that mood or their behavior just doesn't seem to be getting better.

It just keeps continuing, seem unable to kind of function and do things that they normally do.

So maybe we have a kid that just has stopped showering or they're not doing their homework anymore so they're not doing those everyday tasks.

Or we'd noticed changes in sleeping or eating habits all of the suddenly eating a lot more or they really seem to lack their appetite and the same with sleep, sleeping a lot or really having trouble going to sleep.

There is a long list, these are some of the big ones that if you're noticing those about your child, I would really think about starting that conversation with them and then definitely kind of reaching out for help.

- How do you help parents overcome that initial fear to get the child to perhaps open up?

- So I think that what we sometimes do as parents is we try to over-complicate things, and so this conversation can really be an informal conversation.

Just start off by asking your kiddo how their day was or what was the best part of their day?

What was the hardest part of their day?

Just trying to talk to them about, what's going on in their life.

You do not need to be a mental health professional or any sort of professional in order to start a conversation and to have that with your kiddo, and so this is an informal conversation where you're really just checking in and seeing what's going on in their life.

I think what's really great is if parents can share their own feelings, especially when we're talking about the pandemic, it's okay to say, you know what buddy I'm anxious too, or I'm worried too, or I don't know what's gonna happen and trying to then engage the child around that.

If you're as a parent able to share your own feelings your child may be more willing to open up as well, and that also helps to with just opening the lines of communication.

And so the child knows then maybe if a problem comes up that you're a safe person to come to and talk to and that you're just as willing to share.

- Why is routine such a integral force to mental health for all people and all humans?

- So I think as creatures, as human beings we tend to really like predictability to know what's gonna happen and to have some sense of control over what's gonna happen next.

Kids they're no different kids who have solid routines structure who know what's gonna happen are just able to kind of navigate their day navigate the world with a little bit more ease.

- As if the pandemic weren't enough, we also had a lot of social justice and social unrest in our world last year.

Are you seeing the effects of that affect kids' mental health, because there are some things being written about that right now that on top of the pandemic all these other issues are affecting kids.

- Absolutely, so that's one of the other stressors that I think is really impacted kids during the pandemic.

So on top of social isolation and the lack of structure and schools not being in session and all of those variety of barriers, social unrest was definitely also a stressor for kiddos and what our therapists and psychologists our providers are really seeing is that kids are coming in and wanting to have these big conversations around race and racism and the events that they're seeing and potentially experiencing in their community, and so I absolutely think it's one of those areas that like I've talked about numerous times during our time together, having a conversation with your kiddo is gonna just be really important.

Families, parents have their own thoughts, feelings, I assess potentially that they bring to this conversation, it's really important just to check in with your kid and see where they're at.

They have questions about what they're seeing in their community.

Do they have questions about their own race?

And it's important just to open the lines of communication around that.

You are not always going to have the answers in conversation, if you don't know it's okay to say that you don't know or that you'll find out but opening those lines of communication is kinda number one there.

- With COVID having disproportionate mental health effects on black and brown communities.

Latin X people have been hit particularly hard.

Milwaukee PBS's Mariano Avila has that story.

- At that moment it got really scary, cause it wasn't just about a job and not being able to be there and support my children but it was also a scary time of like, what is going on, what is COVID?

- [Mariano] Victoria Abrego is a 27 year old mother raising her two children alone and battling with depression after what she describes as an abusive relationship.

In 2020 Victoria lost her job to COVID shut down.

- Considering especially that I am the only provider for my household, it was a huge stress on my shoulders.

It was very difficult to kind of try to figure out where do I go from here.

- According to the CDC, black and Hispanic people have not only seen higher COVID infection and death rates but also mental health effects, with single parents and children being the most effected, according to a study by the University of Oregon.

The Mental Health Technology Transfer Center is a national network that gives training and resources to mental health providers.

We called their National Hispanic and Latino Project Manager, Angel Casillas Carmona in Puerto Rico.

What are you seeing is the real lived experience?

Like what has been happening with folks in the Latin X community?

What are the real world impact?

- In terms of needs, we have seen a lot of increase in mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression also intimate partner violence has been a great issue.

We need to increase health equity and diminish those barriers that our communities face and one of those is precisely stigma, that is a big barrier for accessing treatment and understanding that mental health is as important as our physical health.

- [Mariano] Access to treatment is perhaps the biggest barrier that Hispanic folks face across the country as they seek mental health care, that's according to Casillas.

In Milwaukee a youth advocacy group called Leaders Igniting Transformation is working with Milwaukee public school students to learn from them what they think are failing practices from which to divest in public schools and in turn investing in practices that they think will help them thrive.

- And so one of the things that students come up with a lot when we ask, what would support you is mental health support.

And so that can be counselors, school psychologists, sometimes school social workers, teachers who've gotten training on trauma informed care, things like that come up a lot in what we should be spending our money on as opposed to metal detectors, police, suspensions, expulsions, restraints, things like that.

- [Mariano] And while barriers like access to therapists and investment for children are challenging hurdles in addressing mental health, among vulnerable populations like single Hispanic moms and Latin X children.

Individuals also have to brave the first step in seeking mental health support.

Victoria Abrego's first step took place online.

- I've met amazing women that have been able to support me and help me and I think it's really important just to find your support system not be quiet about what you're going through and find ways to kind of get through it because the hardest part is when you're in the moment and then as soon as you get out of it, it's a little bit brighter on the other side.

- For members of our Latino community, for our children, youth and their parents, and for all who are struggling to keep their mental health in a good place.

We wanna remind them and all of you that there's always help out there.

A quick reminder, a couple of important phone numbers.

The N-A-M-I helpline is +1 800-950-6264.

Suicide prevention hotline is +1 800-273-8255.

We also have a lot of information on milwaukeepbs.org and on our Facebook page that might be helpful.

Thank you so much for joining us for this edition of "10thirtysix" on Milwaukee PBS until next time, stay strong and stay well.

(bright upbeat music)