[chatter] [indistinct conversations] [chairman bangs gavel] 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