This commentary is by Russell Bradbury-Carlin, executive director, Youth Services Inc., Brattleboro; Kreig Pinkham, executive director, Washington County Youth Services Bureau, Montpelier; and Mark Redmond, executive director, Spectrum Youth & Family Services, Burlington.
The federal government released its Youth Risk Survey Data Summary and Trends Report 2011-2021 on Feb. 13. This report collects data every two years from tens of thousands of high school students nationally, including Vermont, related to adolescent health and well-being.
The results are devastating.
Nearly one in three high school girls reported in 2021 that they seriously considered suicide, an increase of nearly 60 percent from a decade ago.
“Persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness” for both males and females increased from 28% in 2011 to 42% in 2021.
The report states, “Unfortunately, almost all other indicators of health and well-being in this report, including protective sexual behaviors, experiences of violence, mental health and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, worsened significantly.”
As the respective executive directors of human service nonprofits that operate in three different geographic areas of Vermont, we are not surprised at all by these results, because it is something we see in our programs daily. We are flooded with requests from parents, schools, pediatricians, judges and from youth themselves, all seeking mental health care and other supports.
But as much as nonprofits like ours represent a critical component of the human services system for the state of Vermont, we are fracturing under the persistent level-funding of programs over many years, and a diminishing workforce that is finding higher-paid, less stressful employment elsewhere.
This “perfect storm” of adverse factors is impacting the nonprofit agencies that partner with the state to create well-functioning juvenile justice and child welfare systems of care.
We are asking for an 8% cost-of-living adjustment to be applied to all existing grants and contracts between nonprofit providers and the Vermont Department for Children and Families, effective July 1 of this year. Specifically, we are calling for permanent increased funding from DCF to providers of the Youth Development Program for youth transitioning out of foster care; and the Compass program for community-based supports to prevent deepening involvement with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.
State funding for these programs has been subjected to years of level-funded budgets, in some cases for more than a decade. All the while, program costs have risen.
We understand that the challenges that youth service providers face are echoed across the human service field. However, the youth services field is additionally challenged by the fact that other forms of supplemental income (such as billable medical services and child care subsidies) do not typically cover services provided to youth and young adults. Our only option for meeting the expense-side demands we’re experiencing is to be paid adequately for the work we are doing.
Hospitals are able to annually make their case for additional funds due to cost overruns to the Green Mountain Care Board, and are almost always granted an increase. The designated agencies, which provide mental health care and are represented by Vermont Care Partners, received an 8% increase last year, which they deserved and should receive again this year.
But our programs year after year are told, “Thank you for the good work you do,” and that is it. The reality is we cannot do 2023 work based on 2018 or even 2013 revenues. We call upon the governor, the Vermont Legislature and the Department for Children and Families to implement an 8 percent increase starting this July 1 and then in future years to provide funding that takes into account the effective rate of inflation.
The risk of losing significant capacity within Vermont’s youth service landscape is real, and we are running out of time to prevent this from happening.
If no action is taken, we can fully expect to see child and teenage suicidality, depression, anxiety disorders, and risky sexual behaviors continue on the same tragic trajectory.