When U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden visited the University of Oregon’s Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health on Tuesday morning, he cited a statistic several times.
“40% of young people said in a recent survey that they felt an extraordinary sense of helplessness,” Wyden said.
In fact, it reached a high of 42% in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. The number has increased since 2021.
Wyden and U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Beaverton, were in Portland Tuesday to talk about solutions.
“The best way to deal with this is in schools,” Wyden said.
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Suzanne Bonamici speak to students at the University of Oregon’s Ballmer Institute for Behavioral Health on October 22, 2024. Wyden and Bonamici say Medicaid can help schools pay for hiring the program’s graduates.
Elizabeth Miller/OPB
More students need support both in Oregon and nationally, but schools face funding challenges and burnout among staff who provide mental health services.
Efforts to address the lack of mental health support for students have been underway at the University of Oregon for more than two years, since university leaders announced plans to do so with the help of a $425 million donation from Steve and Connie Ballmer. dollars to open a behavioral health institute in Northeast Portland.
It’s the first semester for UO students to train to become pediatric behavioral health specialists through a new four-year bachelor’s program. The Ballmer Institute, located on the former Concordia University campus, plans to train students to work in schools where they will be tasked with identifying early behavioral health problems and intervening with appropriate strategies.
New funding announced Tuesday will help sustain that work, including $1.3 million in federal dollars that will go directly to the institute and then go directly to school support, according to Executive Director Kate McLaughlin.
Under an agreement with the Portland and Parkrose school districts, Ballmer students will work in public schools to conduct general screening to determine what students’ needs are.
“We know that behavior means communication, and our job as adults is to provide that support and those relationships to students,” said Sarah Lamb-Christiansen, principal of Sacramento Elementary in Parkrose, one of the partner schools.
A Ballmer faculty member has been “embedded” in Sacramento for several months, Lamb-Christiansen said.
James Loveland, PPS director of student success and health, said Ballmer faculty’s collaboration with PPS staff has been helpful.
“There is enough work for everyone,” said James Loveland, PPS senior director of student success and health.
The University of Oregon Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health was founded in March 2022 on the former Concordia University campus in Northeast Portland.
Rob Manning/OPB
At the same time, the college students will also receive training from Lines for Life, an Oregon-based nonprofit focused on supporting people in crisis. Lines for Life operates a national youth hotline called YouthLine, which provides peer support to thousands of young people.
YouthLine Associate Director Craig Leets said the college students will receive mental health training and certifications before working YouthLine shifts for “several months,” gaining real-time experiences that students wouldn’t get in a classroom.
“It can be frightening when a young person comes and says they are thinking about suicide or self-harm. That doesn’t happen often with some psychologists,” Leets said.
“They don’t know how to provide that immediate support, and so they will build those skills and gain that experience by working on our help, support and crisis hotline.”
McLaughlin said there will be a YouthLine center on the Ballmer Institute campus where students will complete weekly shifts.
Soon, these university students will graduate and start looking for jobs in cash-strapped school districts.
How can schools finance these new specialists?
Money from Medicaid
The Ballmer Institute is working to build a new workforce equipped to serve students with behavioral and mental health issues. School administrators say they are eager to help.
“We talk a lot about ‘we need support in schools’ – and we do, but it depends on the people we place,” said Parkrose director Sarah Lamb-Christiansen.
“It’s most helpful when we have adults who know how to respond and adults who believe in children’s abilities.”
Wyden and Bonamici say Medicaid should foot the bill for these services.
“School districts don’t have additional resources – even if the workers were there now, they wouldn’t have the resources to hire them. “So it’s really about unique approaches to preparing the workforce and making sure they get paid for the important work,” Bonamici said.
Previously, professionals could only bill Medicaid for extracurricular mental and behavioral health services. McLaughlin said policy changes led by Wyden make it possible to bill Medicaid for the same services provided in a school.
Katie McLaughlin is the new executive director of the UO Ballmer Institute.
University of Oregon/OPB
“We know that most children who need behavioral health services receive them in schools, the majority receive them in schools,” McLaughlin said.
Now, McLaughlin said the state needs to change its policies to take advantage of available federal funding. It’s an effort advocates want to pursue in next year’s legislative session.
“Not only will this help graduates of our program by making it easier for schools to hire them since they can bill for the services they provide,” McLaughlin said, “it will also help our schools with payment.” We need more counselors, social workers and psychologists to expand the workforce with people who can meet the needs of our children in schools.”
