Children’s Mental Health Summit sparks discussion on social media and community collaboration

PARKLAND, Wash. More than 220 people, including school district, behavioral health and hospital leaders, agree that more resources are needed to fully address the children’s mental health crisis.

They all gathered Monday in a ballroom on the campus of Pacific Lutheran University to share ideas and potential solutions to offset a dramatic increase.

“We saw about a 400% increase in the number of children coming into our emergency room with mental health crises and being boarded because there was no safe place to go.” said Dr. Chris Ladish, assistant vice president of the Bessler Center for Children’s Community Health at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital.

The meeting had long been planned before the attorney general, and dozens of states have filed suit against Meta over allegations that the social media giant targeted children under 13, negatively impacting their social and emotional development. The summit was hosted by Kids Mental Health of Pierce County and Ashley Mangum.

Do children look to social media for positive validation or social connections? They look forward to boosting their self-esteem, right? Because that’s not where you’ll find these things, Mangum said matter-of-factly after leaving the daylong event series.

RELATED | Washington among 41 states suing Meta, saying its social platforms harm children’s mental health

Mangum launched the summit in 2018, before the pandemic exacerbated some of the long-standing issues within the community.

Tovah Denaro was a presenter and said social media has long been a problem for children.

What we find with social media is that every time we get a notification on our phone, we get a fake, superficial dose of dopamine. It affects children under 13 more significantly than adults, Denaro said. For children under 13, this limbic system and prefrontal cortex are not yet developed. The brain is literally being hijacked by these hormones when it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t overwhelm the brain like it does with social media.

School district representatives filled the room and noted how they found needs outpacing resources in the county’s small towns.

We’ve seen a marked increase in anxiety and depression, said Jeannie Larberg of the Sumner Bonney Lake School District. She worked there for 23 years. We need to better understand that we have two different systems. And sometimes, because we have two different systems, we don’t really know how to collaborate.

Claudia Miller of the Franklin Pierce School District said COVID has exacerbated the problems. There are the social skills of reading body language, making friends, connecting with peers, and being able to read situations. A lot of these things didn’t happen when COVID hit, Miller said. Children were unable to learn some of these soft skills that are often learned through one-on-one human interaction.

They all seemed to appreciate the lawsuits’ attention to the impact of social media, but Ladish was quick to point out that it’s just one of the issues that contributed to the complexity of the whole thing, pointing out fingering climate change, gun violence, racism and overall phone use. as contributing factors as well.

Ladish also said that such open dialogue between community partners also helps establish certain guidelines when speaking with children.

I think tackling stigma is one and looking at prevention, Ladish said, but added: Rather than waiting for children to come to us, we need to go to where they are and so if they are at l school, if they are in community centers, that is where we must serve young people, rather than waiting for them to try to come see us in artificial environments.

We talk about heart health, we talk about oral health, we talk about our vision, mental health is just another aspect of health. They’re all systems and we’ve spent way too much time sorting them into two broad categories of physical health and mental health and I think we need to stop doing that, Ladish said.

This story is part of a year-long KOMO News initiative to raise awareness of youth behavioral health needs and solutions.