Children's Mental Health

Mental health care is just as crucial to well-being as physical health care. Yet many children don’t receive the mental health services they need. At Nemours Children’s, we are committed to improving mental health care for our nation’s youth.

Children across the country are experiencing heightened behavioral health challenges. At the same time, resources for addressing these needs are declining.

Nemours is working to deliver high-quality, accessible children’s mental health care. We’re engaged in both local projects and national advocacy to expand and improve behavioral health services.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, up to 1 in 5 children ages 3 to 17 had a mental, emotional, developmental or behavioral disorder. Throughout the pandemic, the need for pediatric mental health services has only increased.

Since the pandemic began, mental health-related emergency room visits have increased:

• 25% for children ages 5 to 11
• More than 30% for youth ages 12 to 17

That spike comes on the back of a sad reality: Many children don’t receive the mental health treatment they need, including:

• 40% of children living with anxiety
• 45% of children living with behavior disorders

We’ve built our initiatives with that larger background in mind. The pandemic has starkly highlighted these needs, but they will still exist when it ends.

Disparities in access to behavioral health care

Many environmental factors, or social determinants of health (SDOH), affect children’s mental health and access to health care. Young people of color, and those living in rural or under-resourced communities, are less likely to access mental health services:

• Just 35% of Black or Hispanic youth receive treatment for major depressive episodes, compared to about 50% of white youth.
• Only 15% of children living in poverty receive mental health care, and even fewer complete mental health treatment plans if they receive them.

All these trends point to a dire need to improve mental health care for all children. We are working on several initiatives designed to increase access, train providers and improve federal policies.

We have joined the Hidden Helpers, a collaboration of the White House’s Joining Forces initiative, the Elizabeth Dole Foundation and the Wounded Warrior Project.

Launched in April 2021, Hidden Helpers focuses on uplifting the voices of youth caring for parents wounded in war. Nemours is working with the Elizabeth Dole Foundation to create a toolkit for pediatric care providers. The toolkit will help physicians, nurses, mental health providers and allied health professionals better understand and address the unique challenges these children face.

Nemours and Mental Health America have partnered to develop comprehensive federal policy recommendations. Our proposals aim to rapidly improve mental, emotional and behavioral health for children and teens in the U.S.

We call on Congress and the Executive Branch to:

Invest in the children’s behavioral health workforce

We must expand the mental, emotional and behavioral health workforce for pediatric care by:

• Increasing funding
• Offering incentives and training reimbursement
• Placing particular emphasis on professionals who are Black, Indigenous or LGBTQ+ or who live in rural areas  

Increase access to care

We must improve access to care in locations that work for families. Strategies to achieve this goal include:

• Increasing Medicaid reimbursement
• Integrating mental health care into primary care practices, schools and other settings that serve children
  

Create national programs

We ask that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention create a center dedicated to reversing recent alarming trends in children’s mental health. This center would lead national strategy and oversee related programs. Simultaneously, we call on the government to increase funding for pediatric programs in the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Education.

Establish federal task forces

We call on our nation’s leaders to establish:

• Federal Children’s Cabinet
• Interdepartmental Task Force on Child Well-being
• White House Conference on Building Back Better for Children and Youth
• White House Office on Children and Youth  

Promoting innovative delivery models

Our country must promote innovative Medicaid payment and delivery models that optimize health across lifespans. We recommend an emphasis on models that capture long-term value and engage multiple sectors, such as maternal mental health or kindergarten readiness.  

Our mental health initiatives are just one example of how we prioritize and increase children’s well-being. We also partner with experts to promote health in children’s early years. Learn more about our strategies in early care and education.