also at the state house today another pressing issue addressing the youth Mental Health crisis recent reports find 10 percent of New Jersey's children have been struggling with anxiety depression and other mental health issues since the start of the pandemic a CDC study just released unveiled teen girls in particular are experiencing record high levels of sadness violence and Trauma a raft of bills is moving through Trenton that policy makers hope will make a difference Raven Santana has the story I'm here to support bills and lettuce about a dozen people who testified in front of the education committee describing his own struggles as a child with no one to turn to know and there was no one there to support that then and to say in 2023 that there's a chance that that life that could still happen these children's voices are not being heard and we've got to start listening and not just listening we have to provide some kind of action that's going to provide them with mental health services sooner rather than later included in the list of bills is sponsored by senator Joseph Cryin that requires school districts to provide grief instruction and another sponsored by Senator Teresa Ruiz that requires the creation of a New Jersey youth Suicide Prevention advisory Council and we watched with heart recent news in terms of losses lost in our schools imagine that understanding is what that means to the students at surround all of it is to to look at what what are we doing to formulate a report about best practices what what are we doing what resources are available but this is a subject matter that in one committee I don't think we're going to draw down or get to an answer it's an unfortunate anything and so one thing that we need to wrap ourselves around also is outside of creating policy that creates kind of that artificial infrastructure for confidence and support and and love is to also remind all of our youth that there are people who are looking out for them and that if they are in need these are the steps that they can reach out to and get opponents of the bills testified saying faith not resources is where funding should go but what's important is that in our civil society for hundreds of years if not thousands of years people have turned to their churches to their synagogues to their mosques in times of grief in times of counseling and to expect that a government employee can somehow fill that Gap with a governmentalized grief program I think it's very disturbing pair social worker Elizabeth King Casada testified in support of more Greek counseling for students quesada stressed to opponents that Faith wasn't enough to help her family after the loss of her son who unexpectedly drowned in July a son passed away unexpectedly in July unfortunately huge rounds my daughter was there at the time several of my family members were there she's currently having difficulty in dealing with it I mean sometimes it becomes behavioral issues sometimes it just becomes extreme sadness other times you look at her and it's like hey you never know anything happen children need to be educated on his staff members need to be aware of what grief education is and how they can go about talking to children and helping children to cope and advocate here that I spoke with say it's also important that young children are especially given time not just resources to cope with Greece and to see the impact in school and how it's kind of dismissed you get a couple days right it's like at work you get your three-day bereavement and then you're expected to come back business as usual not the long-terms effect and a lot of these children especially post pandemic are suffering from suppressed grief Advocates say they're now concerned that if these bills aren't passed that there could be dark consequences for these kids to safely cope with grief frenzy Spotlight news I'm Raven Santana thank you [Music]