State's School Safety Tipline Reveals Mental Health Crisis, Shapiro Says
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Safe2Say is a tip line used by students with the intention of preventing violence in schools, but it's uncovering a mental health crisis.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro's office launched the program at North Hills High School in 2019 and he returned there Wednesday.
"Students were so open with me back in 2019 when I was in the library right over there about mental health issues and then we saw of the 80,000 tips we received state-wide, 72.9 percent, 73 percent, were about mental health issues and so I came back today to sort of take the students' temperature again."
Twenty percent of those tips involved a matter of life or death, with kids reporting cyberbullying, cutting, self harm, suicidal ideas, or depression and anxiety.
It's an issue only heightened by the pandemic, according to NAMI Keystone Pennsylvania, our area's leading mental health nonprofit.
The attorney general's office is now calling on the state legislature to make funding available so all schools can hire more counselors.
"Fund a mental health counselor at least one at every single school building throughout our commonwealth. Some schools have made the investment like North Hills, but other schools maybe don't have the resources to do it, but what is really clear is the need is real," Shapiro said.
Our area boasts one of the state's leading nonprofits in the mental health space, dedicated to providing the resources so desperately needed by children and their families.
