INDIANAPOLIS — Teenagers in Indiana are in crisis and need help.
That was the message from a group of high school students who came to the Indiana Statehouse Wednesday, Aug. 28.
The students came from across the state to be part of a youth mental health roundtable. They talked about what it's like to balance school, extra-curricular activities and jobs. Add social media into the mix, which they say adds to peer pressure, bullying and phones going off all night with notifications.
All of it, they say, is leading to teens who are stressed, anxious and depressed.
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 had a major depressive episode did not get the care they needed to treat it.
According to students on the panel, that's because there's often a wait list to get help from school counselors.
A study last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Indiana Department of Health found that 25% of the more than 1,000 Indiana students surveyed in 33 Indiana public high schools said they had seriously considered suicide, with close to 24% making a plan.
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Caden Kerns, a 16-year-old junior at Eastern High School in Howard County, who was part of the panel, said at one point, he'd been part of that statistic.
Kerns said when he went for help, he was initially told he'd have to wait four months to see a counselor.
"Four months for someone who had a plan to commit suicide. Four months and if you're further along than I was, you're not going to make it four months," Kerns said.
"Children are dying. The future of Indiana is dying," said Keirsten Nies, a senior at Pioneer High School in Royal Center.
Students like Nies and Cole Ramsey, who is a senior at Western Boone Junior Senior High School, say they have a front row seat to the tragedy.
"Every year that I've been there, we have, unfortunately, lost a student to suicide or drug overdose," Ramsey said of his experience since seventh grade. "That's why I'm sitting in front of you today. As a student, I could not sit idly and watch as my peers and my classmates died."
Now, Ramsey and other teens on the panel want Indiana's lawmakers to listen when they tell them students need more counselors at their schools so kids who reach out for help, don't have to wait to get it.
"These counselors have so much to do, that they often cannot meet with students regularly," said Yavuz Atlamaz, a senior at Fishers High School, who explained his school is one of the lucky ones, equipped with eight guidance counselors.
The ratio of high school students to counselor recommended by the American School Counselor Association is 250-to-1. A 2023 study showed in Indiana the ratio was double that recommendation.
Teens on the panel said that's a problem for students who desperately need someone to hear their cries for help now.
"We are a state in crisis, and if we don't start listening to our students, more students will die," Ramsey said.
State Sen. J.D. Ford (D-District 29), who convened the panel, said going into next year's budget session, lawmakers had to look at what they prioritized in deciding how to spend the state's money.
"We have to put all options on the table," Ford said when asked about allocating more money from the state to hire more school guidance counselors and therapists.