Alaska’s teens are struggling — and the help they need isn’t always easy to find., fewer beds for psychiatric care and long waitlists for counselors and therapists, especially for those specializing in the treatment of young people., the last year the state’s annual Youth Behavior Risk Survey was conducted, showed that out of 1,875 respondents in 39 schools, about a quarter had seriously considered suicide and 19% had attempted suicide.
Kursten Wilde participated in Indigenous People's Day rally. The red handprint represents the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women call to attention. “Now that we’re trying to go back to normal, now we’re starting to see students maybe fall through the cracks and not get the attention and support that they need.”Ashley Kramer is a social studies teacher in the Galena School District.
“So they go into this, like, fight-or-flight mode where the school doesn’t really matter. And that is a direct result, I think, from a lot of taxing mental health over the last 2 1/2 years or so.”“I just wonder if it kind of felt like we were all in this together before, like it was like a mutual misery,” she said. “But now that we’re trying to go back to normal, now we’re starting to see students maybe fall through the cracks and not get the attention and support that they need.
And while pandemic measures have relaxed since those early months, the school used to feel more integrated with the broader Galena community — and the long absences of activities and events that helped students feel a sense of belonging and connections have had an impact. She spent the last week of her spring break in Juneau speaking to lawmakers about two pieces of legislation — Senate Bill 80 and House Bill 60 — that would provide mental health education templates for schools.
Sycely Wheeles holds her cat Ollie for a portrait. Miss Alaska's Outstanding Teen Sycely Wheeles speaks about her personal experiences with mental health and how she's using her platform to affect positive changes to how mental health is dealt with. Photographed at her home March 11, 2022. “We’ve hit a flashpoint with most kids where, if we aren’t talking about and addressing some of the issues of anxiety and the uncertainty that’s underlying that, it’s a lot harder for us to move on.”Mat-Su Borough School District school psychologist Micah Hoffman, photographed in the gymnasium at the Mat-Su Day School, where he has an office, on Wednesday, March 2, 2022 in Wasilla.
Another good perspective in the famous “Uniquely Stupid” essay. “The children are the canary in the coal mine.” Cheers
Good read.
AnchorageAction If you're serious about this issue at all, ...you will not vote for a Republican ever again. Not even the ones masquerading as 'independents'.
Important article.