Senator Murray, Surgeon General Murthy Push to Address Youth Mental Health Crisis

Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, joined Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy for a roundtable with a youth mental health advocate and a mental health expert from Washington state to discuss the dire mental health crisis affecting young people across our country—and her work in the Senate on a bipartisan package to address the crisis and get kids the support they need. During the roundtable, Senator Murray and Dr. Murthy heard directly from Elizabeth Ashley Dawson, a 15-year-old mental health advocate from Washington state, and Dr. Chris Ladish, the Chief Clinical Officer of Pediatric Behavioral Health for Mary Bridge Children’s and MultiCare Behavioral Health Network in Tacoma, about how the mental health crisis is affecting young people in Washington state.

During the conversation, Senator Murray highlighted how critical resources that she helped secure in the American Rescue Plan are going to Washington state K-12 public schools and can be used to meet students’ social, emotional, and mental health needs. She also highlighted the much-needed boosts she secured for our nation’s mental health and substance use disorder services in the latest bill to fund the government, which will help bolster the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and improve access to mental health care. But she made clear that more work is urgently needed, with new CDC data showing that nearly half of all youth nationwide have felt persistently sad and hopeless throughout the pandemic—and this crisis has been particularly severe for young girls and LGBTQ+ youth.

Senator Murray is working in the Senate to address this crisis and is currently making progress on a bipartisan mental health and substance use disorder package to strengthen mental health services for children and youth, continue improving suicide screening and prevention to save lives, make it easier for people to get mental health care, and much more.