EDITORIAL: Time to improve emergency mental health service for youths

Sept. 17--We were touched by Kyra Aldridge's story, and we hope others were, too.

The Live Oak teenager got up and spoke at a public forum on mental health a couple weeks ago at River Valley High School.

She recounted how, in seventh grade, she was being bullied -- that other kids would follow her chanting horrible names. She talked about how she began believing what they were saying. She had a bout of anxiety in the eighth grade, followed by depression, insomnia, self-harm and attempted suicide.

"If they didn't like me, why should I like me?" she said.

She explained how she knew something was wrong and that she wanted to get help. And she discovered that there's a serious problem in Yuba-Sutter, Northern California and the entire state -- a lack of hospital beds for youths with mental health needs.

Her story and the forum were reported by Andrew Creasey in the Sept. 14 edition of the Appeal-Democrat.

First of all, kudos to Aldridge for having the courage to get up and speak openly about matters that most of us would go to great lengths to avoid discussing in public.

Secondly, her point is well made. Mental health emergency service opportunities in Yuba-Sutter are abysmal.

We have, in our counties, no beds allotted to serving youths with psychiatric needs. None. There are only 155 such beds available in all of Northern California and none of those are from north of Sacramento, said Tony Hobson, director of Sutter-Yuba Mental Health Services.

Aldridge told of sleeping on a couch, waiting for a space to open up so she could be helped.

Hobson said that Aldridge's experience is typical. It can take from several hours to days to locate an empty bed for youths who need help. And when they are located, they're always in another community -- probably in Alameda, Sacramento, Contra Costa or Solano counties. And those beds are available on a first-come, first-served basis ... if you have a crisis, start driving, because if you're not the first one there, your teen is out of luck.

It seems ludicrous, in this day in age, when we supposedly have come to the realization that mental health should be treated as seriously as physical health needs, that we have no provision for youths with severe mental health needs -- nothing locally, and beyond sparse regionally.

In fact, we're losing ground. According to Creasey's article, in spite of an increasing population, the number of psychiatric beds decreased by almost 3,000 since 1995 -- a decline of more than 30 percent, according to a 2012 report.

In 2013-14, there were 404 visits to Sutter-Yuba Mental Health Services for psychiatric emergency services. Of those, 288 were children aged 4 to 17; and 103 resulted in hospitalization. And as you ponder those numbers, keep in mind that professionals report that it's very difficult to get young people to admit they need help and actually seek it out.

Aldridge, a sophomore at Live Oak High School, is an example of the benefits of seeking help -- she's now a successful student, athlete and runs her own business.

"Achieving happiness has to do with focusing on yourself," she said at the forum. "That was the hardest thing for me. But you set small goals first -- get through the day, get through this class -- and go to larger goals."

Sutter-Yuba Mental Health Services offers programs for prevention and intervention in mental illness events. They have a little money for recreation programs for youths. They have classes for families on how to prevent risky behavior and dealing with illness and bullying. But if it's something really serious and a patient needs to be admitted somewhere for care? We're out of luck.

And there's nothing, really, on the horizon that offers a great deal of hope, though officials at Rideout Memorial Hospital tell us the issue is on their radar and they are exploring options and opportunities for addressing mental health needs. We offer them our encouragement.

We're proud of Kyra and appreciative of her presentation.

And we believe what she says.

"I hope we can advocate for youth mental health services in our area," said Aldridge. "Right now, it's not a place I would want to raise my kids." That's what she said. And she's right. When it comes to mental health emergency services for youths, we need to do better.

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