New local study provides base for addressing mental health in area youth
A 2021 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that assessed mental health and suicidal behaviors from 2011 to 2021 in high school students across the United States indicated that 13% of high school girls had attempted suicide and 30% had seriously considered it. That jumped to more than 20% for LGBTQIA+ teens, and 45% of queer youth had seriously considered suicide. These numbers are alarming, and the CDC recommends the implementation of programs that support positive youth development to decrease suicidality and other mental health issues in youth. With the increase in mental health crises being experienced by youth and the need for programs to combat it, the Core Four Partnership between the city of San Marcos, Hays County, San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District and Texas State University conducted a Youth/Young Adult Community Needs Assessment in order to assess mental health, belonging and career readiness of local youth and young adults. It was also designed to assess the use of existing services and gaps or opportunities for new services and programs.
“The survey showed that youth are not receiving basic needs. This is the foundation for development and growth and is a huge concern for our community. Without these basic needs being met, this impacts their overall wellbeing including how well they do in school, social engagement, communicating behavior [as well as] their mental and physical health,” said Lizzy Orman, Greater San Marcos Youth Council lead family support specialist. “As a community, this is where we start in order to help support the youth in every way possible. It starts with the foundation. Let's pour into them because they are our future.”
The youth/young adult sample were asked how often they experienced poor mental health in the past 30 days, and the data showed that 30.2% report having poor mental health most of the time or always (22.1% said most of the time and 8.1% said always). This percentage is even higher for Texas State students that reported having poor mental health most of the time or always at 35.1%. The most common response was that the youth and young adults experienced poor mental health sometimes at 30.6%, and 17.9% of them responded that poor mental health was experienced rarely.
The data showed that among the youth/young adult respondents, 63% screened negative for Clinical Depression and 37% screened positive for Clinical Depression. For Texas State students only, 47% screened negative for Clinical Depression, and 53% screened positive for Clinical Depression. The data showed that among youth/young adult respondents, 66% screened negative for Clinical Anxiety, and 34% screened positive for Clinical Anxiety. The data showed that among middle school respondents, 22.1% screened positive for Clinical Anxiety and 24.4% screened positive for Clinical Depression. Among high school respondents, 33.6% screened positive for Clinical Anxiety and 39.3% screened positive for Clinical Depression.
Gender nonconforming youth/young adults had higher rates of anxiety and depression than both cis-male and cis-female respondents, and cis-female respondents had higher rates than cismale respondents. Among youth/young adults, 22.6% of cis-male respondents had anxiety, 27.6% of of cis-male respondents had depression, 44.4% of cis-female respondents had anxiety, 39.8% of cis-female respondents had depression, 52% of gender non-conforming respondents had anxiety and 72% of gender nonconforming students had depression.
The data showed that Hispanic youth/young adults have the highest rate of screening positive for depression, and both white and Hispanic youth/young adults have high rates of screening positive for anxiety. The data showed that 39.4% of white respondents had anxiety, 33.8% of white respondents had depression, 15% of Black respondents had anxiety, 15% of Black respondents had depression, 38.4% of Hispanic respondents had anxiety, 42.4% of Hispanic respondents had depression, 15% of respondents of other races had anxiety and 23.8% of respondents of other races had depression.
Cristal Lopez, Community Action, Inc. of Central Texas youth services director, said that through the Core Four Partnership and the SMTX Mental Health Coalition work has been done to provide education and awareness in the community.
“We have done this by partnering with our local Mental Health Authority Hill Country MHDD to provide Mental Health First Aid Training for Public Safety, Adults and those who work with Youth. We also provided Applied Suiced Intervention Skills Training, and some youth participated in Youth Aware of Mental Health Training. Collectively in 2023, we trained 336 members in the community,” Lopez said. “Our youth and young people are asking for access to more community events, lifestyle programming and activities that are geared toward them. As we saw in the findings that those youth who do not feel a sense of belonging have higher rates of anxiety and depression. By providing more robust opportunities for youth and young adults we hope to meet this need while also providing education and awareness in the community.”
Nancy Morales, San Marcos Housing Authority resident services manager, said local teens haven’t had any opportunity to attend anything that addresses healthy minds or mental health until the Core Four Partnership joined the SMTX Mental Health Coalition.
“This is the second year we have participated in conferences and activities, [and] the youth enjoyed it,” Morales said. “One strength is how all the working groups have a common interest. We already work with youth, and we all want to better understand our youth.”
Youth/young adult respondents were asked to identify where they felt they mattered, belonged and felt safe. The data showed that among youth respondents, 28.8% felt they mattered in the city, 28.8% felt they mattered in school, 29.4% felt they mattered in extracurricular activities, 13% felt they mattered in online communities and 22.2% felt that they did not matter in any of those spaces. Among youth respondents, 33.5% felt they belonged in the city, 19.9% felt they belonged in school, 29.7% felt a sense of belonging in extracurricular activities, 16.8% felt a sense of belonging in online communities, 23.9% felt did not feel a sense of belonging in any of those spaces. Among youth respondents, 43.7% felt safe in the city, 18.9% felt safe in the school, 24.8% felt safe in extracurricular activities, 12.6% felt safe in online communities and 23.4% did not feel safe in any of these.
Among Texas State students, the data showed that 20.6% felt they mattered in the city, 34.9% felt they mattered in the school, 36.5% felt they mattered in extracurricular activities, 7.9% felt they mattered in online communities and 7.8% did not feel that they mattered in any of those spaces. Among TXST students, 25.8% felt a sense of belonging in the city, 34.9% felt a sense of belonging in the school, 32.3% felt a sense of belonging in extracurricular activities, 7% felt a sense of belonging in online communities and 9.3% did not feel a sense of belonging in any of those spaces. Among TXST students, 30.3% felt safe in the city, 35.1% felt safe in the school, 29.3% felt safe in extracurricular activities, 5.3% felt safe in online communities and 8.3% did not feel safe in any of those spaces.
Now that the data has been analyzed Lopez said the partnership is moving into year two of the three year project from Texas Youth Action Network.
“We are now tasked with addressing the findings of the Community Needs Assessment, expanding the general membership of the coalition, onboarding two new partners who will formally participate in the working group, which will be transitioning to the steering committee, hosting Positive Youth Development training and coalition activities,” Lopez said. “Our hope is to invite community members in the Fall 2024 to a general meeting. This can be any community member, stakeholder, youth/young adult middle school age through 24 to help guide the work of the coalition.” According to the Community Action, Inc. documents, the Youth/ Young Adult Community Needs Assessment is a mixed-method study, using both qualitative and quantitative methods that was conducted in the fall of 2023. The Core Four partners worked with Texas State and the SOAR program to conduct four focus groups to gather this information. The focus groups were conducted with representatives from four target populations: local agencies/organizations serving youth/young adults, parents of youth/ young adults, youth aged 11 to 24, and Texas State students between the ages of 18 to 24. The Core Four Partnership involves the city of San Marcos, Hays County, San Marcos CISD and Texas State University and is led by Community Action, Inc. of Central Texas through the establishment of Youth Services.
