Diagnoses of mental health conditions in children and teens are on the rise, including in Indiana. But getting kids the help they need can be a challenge.
About one-third of Indiana high school students reported “experiencing poor mental health, most of the time” in a 2023 survey.
But Jeff Reiter – a psychologist with Whole Team, a group that provides technical assistance to primary care clinics – said many parents have trouble accessing both medication and talk therapy for their kids.
He said he thinks what is most needed is more support for primary care providers – which is where mental health problems often are first identified.
“So they’re getting those medications from a primary care provider,” said Reiter, “a pediatrician, a family medicine, family doctor or something like that. And these are providers who don’t have a lot of time in their visits, maybe 15 minutes. They’re not specialists – they don’t get a ton of training in how to work with psychiatric issues in kids.”
Reiter advocated for placing mental health professionals in primary care clinics, to make them more easily accessible to patients and their parents.
He said he also supports what’s known as parent management training as a non-medication option for youth with mental health concerns.
Advancements in mental health treatment programs and medications have been helpful. However, these services can be out of reach for a patient with limited or no insurance coverage.
Reiter said he agrees the traditional psychotherapy treatment model can be costly – a factor he said he sees as part of the access problem. But he maintained there’s a more relevant issue.
“The point is, there are much more flexible and accessible ways that mental health professionals can practice,” said Reiter, “and that’s really what we need to be encouraging if we’re going to have any chance of reaching more kids.”
A study published in 2023 found in Indiana, in one recent year, untreated mental illness was associated with more than $4 billion a year in costs to society.
