A Focus on Illinois

According to the Illinois Children’s Mental Health Partnership:
- Illinois has seen an upward trend in youth who have had at least one depressive episode within the past year, 14.86% in 2021 compared to 14% in 2020
- Illinois has had an increase in the percentage of youth who have had one severe depressive episode within the past year, 11% in 2021 compared to 10.1% in 2020
- An 11% surge between 2020 and 2021 occurred in Illinois youth who had a major depressive episode but did not receive treatment
- Illinois has seen a decrease in youth receiving consistent treatment for severe major depressive episodes
- Illinois’s rank for youth mental health has declined from 19 (out of 50 states) in 2015 to 36 in 2021

Table Source: Illinois Children’s Mental Health Partnership FY2021 Annual Report

The percentage of Illinois high school students who felt sad or hopeless increased from 32.3% in 2017 to 36.3% in 2019

Map Source: The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS): 2019

The percentage of Illinois high school students who seriously considered attempting suicide increased from 17.2% in 2017 to 19.0% in 2019

Map Source: The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS): 2019

Current Mental Health Policies and Standards

Social & Emotional Learning

The Emotional Intelligence and Social Emotional Learning Task Force was created in 2003 to develop age-appropriate, emotional intelligence and social and emotional (SEL) learning curriculum and guidelines for elementary schools and high schools

Children’s Mental Health Act of 2003

Illinois passed the Children’s Mental Health Act of 2003, a statewide public/private partnership to build a comprehensive and coordinated mental health system for Illinois teens, kids, and families

Mental Health Days

Illinois passed an education act that allows students to take up to 5 mental health days off without a medical note

Despite these policies and standards, feelings of hopelessness and suicide contemplation continue to increase with Illinois teens, suggesting that additional work needs to be completed to assist at risk students.

A 2010 survey conducted by the Illinois Children’s Mental Health Partnership found that there are only 60 school-based mental health centers currently in operation in Illinois
- While many schools use a three-tiered approach to school-based mental health, no program successfully implemented all the components of the public health approach to school-based mental health
- Many of these schools were focused on tertiary (individualized) intervention activities (in Tier 3) than on primary (Tier 1) and secondary prevention (Tier 2), which covers universal screening
- In the same survey, school-based health centers were noted to commonly identify and treat mental health issues compared to other programs