Advocacy

What’s New?

Advancing state policy to support school mental health:

  1. Grow State Investment in Dedicated School Mental Health Funding
  2. Build Our School Mental Health Workforce
  3. Advance Insurance Coverage for Student Mental Health

Over the past decade Wisconsin schools in collaboration with local communities have made substantial progress toward the development of comprehensive school mental health systems in alignment with the WI DPI School Mental Health Framework. A combination of federal, state, local and philanthropic expenditures coupled with a focus on state guidance and policy innovation have empowered school/community collaborations to build resources to advance mental well-being as a central component of student success.

  • Continued expansion of state grants
  • Investments in school social workers
  • Increased Medicaid payment rates for therapy and reduction in barriers to teletherapy
  • Adoption of Medicaid support for consultation services to help coordinate student treatment strategies and goals with teachers, staff and parents.
  • Support for the mental health workforce through grants to help masters level therapists in training achieve full licensure.

While the programmatic gains are significant, the past few years have taken a toll. Data cited in the Surgeon General’s 2021 Youth Mental Health Advisory tells us that “rates of depressive and anxiety symptoms among youth doubled during the pandemic, with 25% of youth experiencing depressive symptoms and 20% experiencing anxiety symptoms.” In addition, “[in] early 2021, emergency department visits in the United States for suspected suicide attempts were 51% higher for adolescent girls and 4% higher for adolescent boys compared to the same time period in early 2019.”

According to data from the recently released WI Youth Risk Behavior Survey (Jul 2024), summarized in the Key Facts by the Wisconsin Office of Children’s Mental Health:

  • More than half of all students surveyed (52.2 percent) self-reported “significant problems with anxiety”
  • 78.9 percent of students who identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) say they have anxiety challenges.
  • Two of every three female students surveyed (67 percent) also reported experiencing anxiety.
  • Over one-third of all Wisconsin students surveyed (35 percent) reported feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for more than two weeks in a row, the highest rate since the YRBS was first administered.
  • Nearly half of LGB students surveyed (48 percent) reported they seriously considered or attempted suicide – four times higher than their peers.
  • 18.6 percent of all students surveyed seriously considered attempting suicide in the past 12 months, the highest rate since 2003.

Grow State Investment in Dedicated School Mental Health Funding

Wisconsin students deserve a robust financial commitment that promises to strengthen school climate, enhance mental health literacy, expand mental health services coordination, increase school staff competencies, and improve coordination of care with mental health therapists when students need higher levels of support.

Question for Candidates: As a legislator, how would you champion/prioritize financial and community resources to support student mental health?

Talking Points on Grants:

  • Long-term sustainability of equitable access to school mental health services for all students depends upon a permanent, continual commitment of state resources.
  • The state could invest in the long-term sustainability of school mental health services and supports by providing dedicated allocations for every school district based on student enrollment.
  • Categorical aid for school mental health will enable schools to build on the foundational programs they have developed and provide for sustainable mental health programs and services in every district across the state.
  • The bipartisan support for school mental health grants over the past four legislative sessions has been critical in laying the foundation for school mental health. The changes to the grant structure adopted in the 2023-25 biennial budget allocated SMH dollars to every district in the state.
  • Spreading the dollars across every district in the state based on student enrollment provided a more equitable allocation of dollars but left nearly half of the school districts in the state with an allocation of $25,000 or less.
  • Those allocations will drop by 60% in the coming biennium, resulting in more than 300 districts receiving less than $25,000 annually in school mental health grants.
  • While school mental health efforts have been initiated in districts across the state, there continue to be significant inequities: some schools develop robust, comprehensive, tiered supports, and other schools lack capacity and resources.
  • To support schools, the grants could have a floor. In their 2023-25 budget, the Department of Public Instruction recommended a base of $100,000 per district with an annual allocation of $100 per pupil.

Build Our School Mental Health Workforce

Move Wisconsin forward by engaging more school-based mental health services professionals. Create more paid opportunities for the development of a high-quality mental health workforce – with special focus on our underserved regions of the state and for the development of clinicians of color, who are historically underrepresented
in the workforce.


Question for Candidates: As a legislator, how would you invest in school services professionals and mental health clinicians to ensure student mental health needs are identified and that there are supportive adults available to students to respond with the right level of care?

Talking Points on Workforce:

  • Support Growth of Critical School Services Professionals
    • Wisconsin falls far short of nationally recommended ratios for school nurses, psychologists, counselors, and social workers. These pupil services staff provide the infrastructure for mental well-being in our schools and are critical partners for connecting students to community mental health providers working in collaboration with schools.
    • These professionals often also serve as the “navigators” for students and families, helping families with insurance coverage challenges, barriers like high deductibles, and facilitating student and parent consents.
    • In 2023-25, DPI sought $36 million over the 2023-25 biennium to support these critical professionals.
  • Support Grants for Qualified Treatment Trainees
    • Created by the legislature in the 2019-21 biennial budget, the Qualified Treatment Trainee (QTT) grant program supports new mental health interns and emerging therapists as they complete their training and prepare for full professional licensure. In the 2021-23 biennial budget, the legislature expanded this small grant
      program to $750,000 annually.
    • There has been high demand for this program, which has been able to capitalize on the infusion of additional federal dollars to substantially increase the number of QTTs serving historically underserved populations and geographically diverse regions of the state.
    • By the second year of the grant, grantee agencies were able to increase the average number of QTTs supported by 40%.
    • At a minimum, the state could double the annual funding of this successful program to $1.5 million.

Advance Insurance Coverage for Student Mental Health

Properly recognizing and reimbursing peer specialists and therapists in-training supports students and supports growth in Wisconsin’s mental health workforce.

Question for candidates: As a policymaker, how would you support true mental health parity for our students and make sure that their health insurance (private or public) provides equitable access to effective mental health services?

Talking points on insurance:

  • Commercial Insurance Coverage for In-Training Therapists (QTTs)
    • The state could address one substantial barrier to student access to mental health therapy by adopting a requirement that insurance plans cover master’s level mental health therapists in-training, who are licensed/certified by the state.
    • Across the board, schools identify lack of sufficient insurance coverage as a barrier to students accessing mental health services in schools. Barriers include high deductibles, prior authorization requirements, and restricted networks that fail to include sufficient mental health providers.
    • Narrow networks occur in both the public and private insurance; however, Medicaid does a better job of reimbursing for in-training therapists.
    • Insurance networks that don’t recognize therapists in-training keep students from accessing services offered at their school location. School mental health works best when a student referred for individual therapy can
      access it quickly and conveniently.
  • BadgerCare Plus & Commercial Insurance Coverage for Peer Specialists
    • Parent peer specialists are important resources to support family success in school mental health.
    • Peer specialists may provide mental health navigation support and align with students and families to advance recovery and wellbeing.
    • Adopting Medicaid coverage of peer specialists as a covered Medicaid benefit will increase the peer specialist workforce and expand timely access to needed support.