Child & Youth Suicides Feb 2023 (find your state here)

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Children’s Hospital Association have joined forces to declare a national emergency in children’s mental health, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Today’s declaration is an urgent call to policymakers at all levels of government, we must treat this mental health crisis like the emergency it is,” said AAP President Lee Savio Beers, MD, in a statement.

2 in 5 LGBTQ youth in the U.S. “seriously considered” suicide in the past year. Overuse of psychotropic medications (causing suicidal ideation) on foster children the COVID lockdown, mean politics and cruel media (Dave Chappelle) are making life miserable a great many at risk children and young adults.

KARA advocates for the people, policies and programs

that improve the lives of abused and neglected children.

This article contributed by KARA board member Mike Tikkanen

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COVID has and is still hammering Children’s Mental Health

As a CASA volunteer guardian ad litem, watching at risk children and teens living dangerous lifestyles and speaking  about self-hate have kept me from sleep multiple nights. Knowing that five and seven year-olds in child protective services / foster homes are required to take psychotropic medications makes my skin crawl. Every package has a clear label stating the risk of suicidal ideation. Have you ever met a child that could understand and define that for you?

Suicidality exists on a spectrum.  Many people struggling with their mental health don’t want to deal with it anymore; they don’t have a plan in place, but they don’t feel very invested in living, either. And more people live in that gray area than you might think. The self-hate of so many abused and traumatized children has been common in the children I’ve come to know.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of people who experienced suicidal ideation in a given month during the pandemic more than doubled since 2018. In 2019, data showed that an estimated 12 million people seriously thought about suicide.

These charts show steadily rising trends over the ten year period before COVID. The data pointing to youth planning suicide in the past year is very serious (2019).

Very little data is available for this information post COVID. Suicide rates for Black girls have been rising in recent years, increasing an average of 6.6% annually from 2003 to 2017.

Greater stress and more time locked in troubled homes points to more anxiety, domestic violence and depression. Health and mental health resources have been stretched to the limits during the COVID pandemic.

Compassion and kindness go a long way in helping troubled youth get through troubled times. Continue reading KARA’s reporting state by state of child and youth suicides for the month of February 2023.