Bowman to discuss ‘path forward’ for youth mental health crisis in House speech

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) plans to draw attention to the rise in mental health issues among children and discuss “a path forward” in a House speech on Wednesday evening. 

The New York Democrat will lead what’s known as a “special order hour” focused on the youth mental health crisis as the country’s emergency rooms and schools deal with an influx of children seeking help. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated pediatric mental health needs, sparking Surgeon General Vivek Murthy to issue a rare advisory last month warning of a looming mental health emergency among children. 

Bowman, a former educator and principal, told The Hill that officials in his district “weren’t prepared” for the wave of mental health challenges after returning from remote learning in the fall.

“This is obviously an issue near and dear to my heart and an issue we need to talk more about,” he said in an interview. “Because if we don’t take care of our children, we don’t have a democracy, and we don’t have a healthy economy.”

Speakers on the House floor will discuss “things that need to happen” in schools and communities to alleviate the crisis, including limiting class sizes, recruiting more mental health professionals and providing opportunities for talk therapy for children. 

He also emphasized that those who provide care for children, including parents, teachers and counselors, are also in need of resources, noting, “If children are struggling, the people who serve them are struggling as well.”

Bowman said he hopes the discourse will “elevate” discussions about solutions and help prioritize a direct response.

“Yes, we need to pass voting rights. Absolutely, yes, we need to pass Build Back Better,” Bowman said. “We need to do all those things, but we also need to deal with the health and well-being of the American people and how that connects to what’s happening economically in this country and socially.”

When the country reached 800,000 COVID-19 deaths last month, Bowman wrote to House leadership requesting another COVID-19 relief package with funding to address pediatric mental health, including a bereavement fund for children who lost a caregiver “due to COVID-related reasons.” 

A study published in October found that more than 140,000 American children saw the COVID-19-associated death of a primary or secondary caregiver during the pandemic.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the Children’s Hospital Association, and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry have also raised alarms about youth mental health, declaring a national emergency for youth mental health in the fall shortly after schools returned.

Several schools across the country are struggling to resume in-person learning after holiday breaks amid skyrocketing omicron cases nationwide and short-staffed districts. President Biden and his administration have called for schools to stay physically open during the surges.

Experts have said the pediatric mental health crisis evolved in the decade before the pandemic, but the stressors of the COVID-19 era heightened the issue.