Chair sanders thank you very much for being here. We are going to continue this discussion on this issue of enormous concern to the american people. Senator murphy was going to introduce russell tucker, unfortunately he is detained. Let me begin by introducing her. Mrs. Russelltucker was appointed commissioner of the Connecticut Department of education in 2021. Previously she served as chief operating officer, division chief for the Departments Office of student supports and organizational effectiveness. Mrs. Russelltucker thanks for being with us. Mrs. Russelltucker thank you. Good morning, chairman sanders, Ranking Member cassidy, and members of the Senate Committee on health, education, labor, and pension. I am charlene russelltucker commissioner of education in connecticut. I give you information on Youth Mental Health crisis and connecticuts response to support the needs for students. My big goal is to ensure every Connecticut School has a coordinated and sustainable system of care to provide comprehensive Mental Health supports and services to all students and school staff. The Surgeon General mentioned in a survey of Connecticut High School students confirmed our students face unprecedented Mental Health challenges. Too many for students reported having felt sad or hopeless. And that their Mental Health was not good. Most or all of the time. Most concerning is that 14 said they seriously considered suicide. And 6 actually attempted suicide. These data highlight the immense needs for Student Wellness and urgency for action at federal, state, and local levels. Effective solutions require teams of stakeholders khrg policymakers, community leaders, parents, families, educators and students. I would like to say it cant be about them without them. The commissioners round table for family and Community Engagement in education, the diverse constituent group of stakeholders representing school staff, advocates, parents, and guardians, community leaders, and students to advise me on policy and priorities. Connecticut Student Voice for change Program AllowsHigh School Students to propose projects utilizing state funds. Notably 80 of student proposals focused on Mental Health. Using their voice to advocate for Mental Health support for their peers. They spoke and we are listening. Our Behavior Health pilot established a system of coordinated care for schools in seven districts. One Pilot School District identified 250 students at risk of suicide that was able to provide kreutal and Immediate Responses. Our states mobile Crisis Intervention Services delivers a range of Crisis Response and Stabilization Services to youth and families. Simply calling 911 or 988 immediately dispatched clinicians to schools or 234 eu where a child is in crisis. The Surgeon General report of loneliness underscores the importance of engagement. Our government learning engagement and Attendance Program is a researchbased Home Visit Initiative that improves attendance, feelings of belonging and familyschool relationships. Additionally we invested 33 billion in funding in a multiyear summer enraeufpment grant program. Prioritizing communities, disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Programs place a strong focus on peer relationship. Run an academic acceleration during the summer. In the first year this program connected more than 108,000 students with enrichment opportunities. The department invested 2. 2 million funds for grants to support new partners in underserved communities in designing innovative, high quality afterschool programs to address students academic and Mental Health needs. Mental health is a bipartisan priority. Including addressing work force shortages. The governor and our General Assembly directed 100 million for multiagency Mental Health initiatives. Including 28 million for Mental Health professionals in schools. Multistate agencies are working together to expand the razorbacks of ranks of chloroquine nichials to increase Mental Health needs. Additionally when School Districts have leveraged over 183 million of local funds for students and staff. We are committed to funding and sustaining what works. We also invested funds to establish a groundbreaking collaborative that brings together University Researchers to conduct rick russ evaluations of the many new programs and initiatives thats on the way in our states to ensure programs and investments are achieving results. Thank you for modeling bipartisan National Discourse that will need to enhance access to needed services and ultimately improved academic access supports and outcomes for young people. Thank you very much. Im happy to take your questions. Chair sanders thank you very much. We are going to jump over dr. Garcia for a second. We are going to dr. Joy osofsky who will be introduced by senator cassidy. Senator cassidy its a joy to introduce dr. Joy. A developmental psychologist and National Leader in Early Childhood development. I learned a lot from her. Shes who taught me you can ob gyn picking up separation disorder from day zero, which is amazing. She was very the Mental Health reform bill of 2016. I owe a lot to her. She has expertise in trauma informed care. Helped many louisiana families recover from Hurricane Katrina. And apply that expertise during the covid19 pandemic. She received numerous awards and recognition for her work. Dr. Osofsky, thank you for being here. Dr. Osofsky thank you very much, senator cassidy, for the invitation and senator sanders. I very much appreciate being here. One of the things i want to say in introducing my testimony is how important the opportunity has been for me. Actually together with my husband who is a psychiatrist, to be able to consult with senator cassidy on Mental Health issues. To identify and support community and state agencies that work individually and collaboratively in supporting the Mental Health needs of children and families, including cross state efforts. We started this in 2016. We have been pleased to support his efforts to increase Mental Health support in schools and in communities. And we didnt talk about communities and i think we need to integrate that in the conversation we have now. It would expand communitybased Mental Health services and meltal Health Care Services in schools and communities both raourlt and urban areas. We know in rural areas its much harder to access Mental Health services in general. The efforts of funding also for the National ChildTraumatic Stress network to improve training, treatment, and services for children, adolescence, and families who experienced trauma. I have been fortunate enough to work with the National Network being funded since 2003 to develop Mental Health collaboration with schools and communities. And our latest effort, and i think one that is very much reflective of the direction of the National Network has been to not just work in one community but develop Regional Coalition sews that we scrub the work that we do. The efforts each of us make in working with children who have been traumatized in different ways and experienced trauma to be able to share that knowledge with other communities. For example, and it actually happened to be quite fortunate during the covid pandemic, we a fellow in the network that just ended, Disaster Coalition for child and family resilience. Through that coalition we felt we built regional relationships across states. One in the gulf south where we already had relationships due to the disasters, Hurricane Katrina and the gulf oil spill. In the northeast region of the United States across five states. AntiRegional Coalitions are and the Regional Coalitions are composed of people of all different backgrounds, state agencies, education agencies, stakeholders in the community, people who are involved in policy. We had some politicians involved. So that we are able to share information across the different groups for much better preparedness as we share information response and then recovery when a disaster of any type occurs, not just a natural or psychological disaster, but also a terrorist attack or shooting that has occurred in a community or shooting thats occurred in schools. That we can share information. Have Immediate Response to those situations. I really feel that the work of the National Child network speaks to some of the issues that has already come up in terms of integrating across community, innovative ways to provide Mental Health services in way that is would be quite acceptable. The other thing i want to bring up that has not been discussed is the importance of how to support resilience. How to support resilience in children and how to support resilience in families. Certainly we have seen families being pressed immeasurably during the covid pandemic. Indefinite information, everything changed all the time. Indefinite uncertainty. We didnt know what was going to happen from one day to the next. How the family come together and how can a School System or Community Come together when you dont know how things are going to change from daytoday. The issue came up how to communicate. Thats why theres been excellent exit interviews of social media as a way to connect. We were told we couldnt be around people. How can children relate to their friends . How can one have a sense of family if you cant see people and relate to them . I think that its really very important for us to think about how to establish connections across families and connections across communities. One of them, i see im about to time, i was going to give you a brief example how we brought together families and children after Hurricane Katrina on some of the cruiseships that housed people that did not have housing and how we worked together. Including Mental Health as way of just being there. Thats something we have to think about also as supporting parents to be able to be there and listen to their children and give support to their parents. Thank you very much. Chair sanders thank you. Our next witness is dr. Joshua garcia. Dr. Garcia is the superintendent of the tacoma, washington, School District. He previously served as deputy superintendent, assistant superintendent, high school principal, assistant principal, as well as director and teacher. Other than that not much. Thank you for being with us. Dr. Garcia chairman sanders, Ranking Member cass tkeurbgs members of the committee. I am proud superintendent tacoma School District and honored to share the viewpoint of superintendents for this important hearing focused on Mental Health of our nations youth and speak with you about what we observed, doing, what what we might do together to curb the meant at health crisis. Tacoma is fully committed to each of our students being safe, engaged, supported, healthy and challenged. We recognize mental hell impacts us all Mental Health impacts us all. It affects how we think and act t helps us determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. During highly critical phase of development the lack of support and comprehensive approaches are significantly impacting our students ability to go socially, emotionally, and academic development. Tacoma Public Schools more than 28,000 students represent 170 tribes and ethnicities. Over 2,000 of our students qualify as homeless. Over 55 qualify as low income. 15 qualify for special education students. In the 20112012 school year each 6 our high schools was labeled as a dropout tpabgtory we were in a dire state. We started the tacoma hield initiative. An action plan that recognizes students are learning 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Fast forward to 2022, 90. 2 of our students graduate in four years. 86. 7 of our high schools take collegelevel classes this year alone over 12,000 participants in kindergarten to eighth grade have engaged in after school activity. A Record Number of High School Students are participating a in page opportunity experience. We know the challenges that our students are facing are only growing. In the last year our students, tony, angel, marko, and others have been shot in our community. Our students have to survive human trafficking, battle homelessness, drug abuse, physical and mental abuse, and social media harassment and bullying. While these may not be new to us as a nation, the speed of the incidences antiTraumatic Stress are and the Traumatic Stress are increasing. Like you and i they are being bombarded with experiences. Unlike us, they are doing this without fully developed brains. Coping skills or access to preventive and therapeutic services. In 2021, 13,239 of our 10th grade yours in our states made a plan for suicide. As you heard, Washington State is not unique. Our students are facing tremendous challenges, and schools cant do this work alone. We have moved away from episodic events to Sustainable Practices across our buildings and communities. They are focused on three elements, prevention strategies, response strategies, and therapeutic services. Our prevention strategies, each of our schools develop an intentional plan to support emotional learning. They contextualize each plan at each site. Our students are engaged in physical and Mental Wellness supports during the day and after school ecosystem. We do a shared business model. Community assets, business supports, and funding with over 70 partners. Our system of positive behavioral supports ensure students understand school expectation, fostering stable and reinforcingsing reenforcing Mental Health habits. Our responsive strategies we have invested in professional development. We support and train, facilitate practice with intentional hearing and understanding. We provide peer support. And intensive supports for student at risks. The department of Education Credits we were able to invest in therapeutic supports. T. P. S. Is not able alone to meet the needs. To meet this challenge we are implementing a plan to increase the ratio of students to Mental Health providers. Heres a fuhr things i encourage us to think about doing together. Expand on the bipartisan Safer Communities task. I now budget decisions are tough. With the message students are telling us we have to listen to. Pay for Health Care Services with Health Care Dollars to ensure medicaid access. Incentivize the Health Care Industry to partner with schools. Prioritizing youths first. Build on categorical funding opportunities. Increase flexibility. With the support for the carl perkins and department of labor grants to build hope. Require states to match your investment. Has tacoma done everything we do . Not yet. We are making a difference. We have evidence. We know through engage. Our students are being more successful dealing with individual emotions and stresses. Developing their social awareness and working academically at all times. Finally, america schools and individual communities cant do this alone. We must work through partnership. We know its not easy. There are egos. However we are in this together. We may not be united on everything, but our future is with us now and we must be united in our commitment to senator sanders let me begin the questioning. Ms. Russell tucker, you mentioned summer programs and after school programs. One of the things that we have to give young people a lot of positive communitybased activity. Can you talk about the impact increased funding for after school and summer programs has had in connecticut . Ms. Russelltucker i appreciate that question because it is an important piece of the work that we have been doing. Under our funding, we received 11 million summer enrichment and added more funding for the subsequent summers now up to 33 million around summer enrichment. We try to get students back together back with their peers and work while they are having a good time with each other. Enrichment is so important. We have evaluated the impact of that, 1088,000 students. We are in summer number 3 and we are making sure we know what happens. Senator sanders you would Like Congress to continue that funding . It is important we are funding what works and evaluating the impact of those. E want to treat the millions of young people who are struggling and challenge them and bring them together and have proactive activities. You are challenging young people and providing Job Opportunities among other things. Talk about the importance of treating young people with respect and allowing them to use their energies in productive ways . Dr. Garcia its important that each community has the opportunity to see what responsible looks like and thats what our plans doing. Giving Student Voice to that conversation and they bring family voice. Each of our plans is published. Senator Sanders Young people are involved in the development of their plans . Dr. Garcia it looks different in a classroom than in the lunch room. And we have to build community through a common language. We bring respect and what does that look like in the afterschool world and what are the activities they want to participate in. It is an intentional effort to Bring Community together. But that is across. Empeurm t of people. Has an impact. Dr. Garcia students have asked me and said josh stop asking us opinions and bringing others asking our opinion if the adults arent going to do anything. We bring data around. Student voice at our board meetings. Students will vote with their feet, if you will. Extra curricular, not what the adults wants to offer but what they want to participate in. They want to know the activity. We survey their interests regularly. Senator sanders let me ask dr. Osofsky a question, what impact, you walked through the streets of washington this morning and breathed the air, young people worry about climate change, gun violence, they worry about gun violence. Louisiana, vermont. What impact does all of that and more have in indefinite uncertainty about worrying about the future, from an environmental, climate point of view. Dr. Osofsky i struggle with this in the Mental Health world. What children need of all ages growing up, they need to have schedules and have routines and know whats expected. Having a schedule of knowing when they get up in the morning and go to school and who is going to pick them up and what their activity might be. With the covid pandemic that changed continually. One of the things we recommended is set a new schedule, have the children involved in setting the schedule is so there is something predictable and went on in that way and tried to support the parents, too. Parents didnt have a schedule either. Instead of getting up and going to work and doing whatever, they were having to balance that with educating their children if they were fortunate to have internet and every day that changed as well for them. The other thing that is important for the young people is their peers. For the younger children to play with them to the older children, it gets more complicated, as i mentioned contributes but its very, very important, for school is open again and for there to be a schedule and things that children can count on to be able to move forward. I wanted to make a comment about involvement of youth. After there was so much destruction with Hurricane Katrina there were a lot of teenagers on the streets because there was nothing there. There were no activities. We solved them with recovery and the teachers who didnt have classrooms in schools, they involved with recovery. The teenagers instead of being in trouble were able to contribute in positive ways. Senator sanders senator cassidy. Senator cassidy do schools share information between parents and teachers cutting parents out of their childs life. What do you say about the role students who are going through traumatic experiences . Dr. Osofsky that is an important issue because we know the Important Role that parents play, to be there for them, to listen, advise them and be a part of their life. One of the studies done by covid sent out information to families, different backgrounds, racial groups and asked them to have their children talk about what is important during covid and whats going to help them. Number one was the parent was the hero and keep them safe and that was so important to them. From the Mental Health point of view, if the parents can be emotionally available not just being there and being involved with their activities, that is important and will know when things are happening before the school will know. But that collaboration is very important. But parents play a key role in supporting Mental Health of their children. Signifi cant dollars were put forward for teleMental Health. Is there a role to be in School Settings . Dr. Osofsky it does work well for adolescents. They are more used to that. And it is a way to stay in contact, we are very pleased they allowed Mental Health to be done during the pandemic. For younger children it can be challenging. But we found it to be very successful in working with teenagers and hope that will continue. Senator cassidy here you speak today that suddenly occurred to me the people that decided to lock down our economy had the nobel call but ended up in increasing isolation. Did they have children psychologists to do a cost benefit ratio, if we lock down we are going to have x amount available . Dr. Osofsky i dont know about that process. Certainly we were communicating, a number of us and talking about it and i recall almost every time i did an interview i recall an interview with n. P. R. Reporter who had two children and he talked to me how can i support my children under this circumstance . They cant see their grandparents. The holiday was coming and very important. Telecommunication was really helpful. But im not sure whether they did consult. Senator cassidy it wasnt it was predictable that when children were isolated they would have some of the problems that we now see, is it a fair statement . Dr. Osofsky it is. It is clear in families where they had more resources and work remotely and get help and separate learning areas. They wouldnt have to be afraid from covid. Many families with resources were able to do that. For fewer resources, including learning over time and catching up where many of these children have problem. Senator cassidy face time with my eight years old. You mentioned teleMental Health works and younger child wants to hit a button. We will be asked to support these programs in school. At what point just a little boy who has a. D. D. . Dr. Osofsky what we call children about eight years old and older, we found earlier, they were able to Pay Attention earlier. Senator cassidy boy and girls . Dr. Osofsky we didnt see differences. That age and older were going pretty well. But we provided Mental Health services. I think are the ones, we work with with very Young Children under the age of five. If the parents are working with them and thats a combination, not just the Mental Health person, its working with the parent together and then the parent learns how to support the child. We are finding now even in person certainly virtual involving parents even with teenagers and older children its very important to support them. Senator sanders senator markey. Senator markey i want to make a comment about transyouth what mentioned senator baldin. State legislatures have passed 75 bills and blocking transgender care. Drag shows have been attacked and local clinics are installing security systems. Declare it a National State of emergency for lgbtq americans and discriminatory actions and statements by elected officials at every level of government up to the fire and making the Youth Mental Health crisis worse. Passing bills into law is a tough process but what is easy to give people the freedom to be themselves. Do not use hatefilled rhetoric to score political points and we need to do it during pride week and i see this as a huge problem in our country. I want to turn to issues that obviously the Surgeon General was addressing but you are on the front lines. One in three teenaged girls. Contemplated. Suicide. Lgbtq one in five lgbtq attempted suicide. We know exacerbated by the tech and the role they are playing in the lives of these children in our country because its just unregulated in terms of what it can do to teenagers. No protections, no safeguards. They collect an avalanche of personal information and use it up to send back an endless stream of toxic content into the minds of young people in our society and the results are clear, more money for big tech, more pain for kids and teenagers. We know that instagram, facebook, tiktok. So we have to take action. We know they are collecting information and sending it back that puts forward financial interests of these companies. My question as Ranking Member castedy and i introduced a piece of legislation to create an Online Privacy bill of rights. There is a law on the books for 12 and under. But no law for 13 girls who have bolemia. I want to get your comments. The bill would ban targeted ads to children and teens. Two, it would establish a youth marketing and Privacy Division at the federal trade commission and three, it would limit the collection of children and teens personal information and it would actually say to parents you have the right to the companies erase this stuff you have gathered about my child. Would you support that legislation so the parents and kids have protections against big tech . Than k you for the background and information and it is important recognizing the impacts. I believe hearing the voices and youth voices are a part of what is proposed and hear from the voices including families. And ultimately the he proposal being made. I will be looking at that very closely to get a sense of all that being proposed. Senator markey do you believe children and teens need an online bill of rights . Dr. Garcia yes, i do. I was struck by the comments this morning and that we require companies to give them suicide information. We could require to push that information to them as well. Senator markey what about up front putting the preventative action in place. So if the child is targeted, and do we need protections put in place . Dr. Garcia i would say yes. Dr. Osofsky i would agree with my two other panelists here. One of the things i was thinking about it doesnt in any way mitigate what i just said. We know for many of these youth thats how they make relationships, too. So if there was a way to be able to help support them at the same time we are protecting them i hope would be very important. Senator markey we know the big tech plays a big role. So we are urgently in need of passing comprehensive legislation. A. I. That we are discussing right now is on steroids. Big Companies Target children. We have to put the protections in place and if we dont do that, we wont be able to protect children. Senator. Parents role. Im going to turn to mrs. Russelltucker. I served on a School Board Many years ago. Didnt have the issues that we now contend with. Its a lot different now than then. Parents were the primary stakeholder on any issue and disciplinary one. In your testimony you list in terms on the Mental Health issue, the stakeholders, the office of the governor, state board of agencies. And families, students, advocates, policy patriotickers, local Health Officials and more. I tried to get out of the secretary who the main stakeholder should be and could not get parents out of his mouth the first time. After the Virginia Election and was made an issue there. He did say that parents should be a stakeholder, not the primary. When we are talking about Mental Health, there is a list and but i would think in any of these issues, the parents ought to be the primary and Everything Else ancillary. Would you agree with parents being the primary and all these other ancillary or do you have a different way of saying what you are meaning what you said there . Ms. Russelltucker i have long recognized the value and parent voice in everything we do in education. It is important that they are at the table and they are a stakeholder and Family Engagements round table that i mentioned is doing just that. They worked together through their voices to define what Family Engagement means in connecticut. They are important. Every time we have a policy that their voices are there at the table so we can hear their perspective. So they are mr. Braun are they consulted with getting them first or just part of the group . Ms. Russelltucker i know for a lot of the initiatives they have in this state they are consulted and provide consent for services. So in that case of health, they are very much key and there to make decisions around chair. Dr. Garcia in Washington State, students can Access Services without family consent. Would you say they are the primary and not just part of it . Dr. Garcia what i have experienced is family in different spots. Recognition is that families are not in a place where they are able to be at the table for work, a variety of issues. Its not the luxury. You consider them the primary. Another question, over the years we spent billions on the issue and then like each panelist we have a minute and a half here, do you think we have implemented what we have already put into law and the money we devoted to it properly . Do you think that has been done in a way that would justify more . Do we need to do better at that and what is at stake with maybe being able to do that better. Give it 30, 40 seconds and move on down the panel. Ms. Russelltucker we know what works. We implement we must know the results and impact and state level you can see in my testimony. Yes or no and federal programs, you think we have implemented as good as it needs to be . Ther e is always room for improvement. Dr. Garcia i would require states to match your investment and Funding Direct streams are important and competing for grants are oftentimes problematic. I would encourage us how to direct to build on sustainability. Dr. Osofsky i believe very strongly that the investment at least one program that i am involved with and National ChildTraumatic Stress network. We focus on trauma and how to help children and there has been creative ways to spread what we learn and address the issues that we are concerned about with children. So that money has been very well spent. Senator sanders that concludes our hearing today and i thank all three of our witnesses for their excellent presentations. Questions for the record will be due in 10 business days. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record five statements from stakeholders outlining Youth Mental Health priorities. That will take place and the committee stands adjourned. 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