Children’s Mental Health, The Pandemic, & The Next Normal

I found the announcement that the Children’s Hospital Colorado declared a mental health “state of emergency” to be jarring. What was the criteria for this state of emergency? The system saw a 90% increase in demand for behavioral health treatment for children in the past two years—and escalation during the pandemic. The number of behavioral health cases in 2020 doubled, compared to 2019. This year, the number one reason for children presenting to the emergency department was suicide attempts. And most days, the health system had between 12 to 24 children waiting several hours to a couple of . . .