Indiana schools don't have enough counselors to meet the mental health needs of Hoosier teens.
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana teens are in crisis and they need help.
That was the message from a group of high school students who visited the Indiana State Capitol on Wednesday.
Students from across the state came together for a roundtable discussion on youth mental health, where they discussed what it's like to balance school, extracurricular activities and work. Add social media into the mix, and they say it just adds to the problems of peer pressure, bullying and beeping phones.
All of this, they say, contributes to stress, anxiety and depression among teens.
Statistics from various studies tell the same story: According to a 2024 report from Mental Health America, a national nonprofit that promotes mental health and mental illness prevention, 65,000 Indiana youth who experienced a severe depressive episode did not receive the care they needed to treat it.
That's because there are often waiting lists to get help from a school counselor, according to students on the panel.
A CDC/HHS study last year found that of more than 1,000 students surveyed at 33 Indiana public high schools, 25% said they had seriously considered suicide, and about 24% had made a suicide plan.
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One of the panel members, Kaden Karns, 16, a junior at Howard County Eastern High School, said he was once part of those statistics.
Kearns said when she went to seek help, she was initially told she would have to wait four months to see a counsellor.
“That's four months for someone who was planning to kill themselves. Someone further along than I was wouldn't last four months,” Kearns said.
“Children are dying. The future of Indiana is being lost,” said Keirsten Nees, a junior at Pioneer High School in Royal Center.
Students like Neese and Western Boone Junior and Senior High School student Cole Ramsey say they had a front row seat to the tragedy.
“Every year that I was there, unfortunately, we lost a student to suicide or a drug overdose,” Ramsey said of her experiences since she was in Grade 7. “And that's why I'm sitting here in front of you today. As a student, I couldn't just sit back and watch my peers and classmates die.”
Now Ramsey and the other teens on the committee want Indiana lawmakers to listen as they plead for more counselors in schools so kids who want help don't have to wait long to get it.
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“The counselors have so much to do that they often can't meet with students regularly,” said Yavuz Atramaz, a senior at Fishers High School, explaining that his school is one of the lucky ones to have eight guidance counselors.
The American School Counselor Association's recommended ratio of high school students to counselors is 250 to 1. A 2023 study showed that in Indiana, that ratio is double the recommended amount.
Teens on the panel said that's a problem for students who desperately need someone to hear their cries for help right now.
“We are a state in crisis, and if we don't listen to students, more students will lose their lives,” Ramsey said.
State Sen. J.D. Ford (Democrat, 29th District), who convened the committee, said lawmakers need to consider what they will prioritize when deciding how to spend state funds ahead of next year's budget meeting.
When asked about allocating more state funding to hire more school guidance counselors and therapists, Ford said “we need to explore all options.”
