the tension around parental rights issues is adding to the inherent stressors for students as they return to school with the Teen Mental Health crisis still on the rise according to the State Department of Health nearly 6% of high school students attempted suicide in 2019 and in 2021 18% made a suicide plan those numbers though are likely higher than what's being reported National Data gathered by the CDC found an alarming number of students said they experienced feelings of sadness and hopelessness preventing them from taking part in their normal activities it's a lot for families and Educators to tackle Dr. Frank Ghinassi has some ideas for that he's the president and CEO of ruter University Behavioral Health Care and he joins me now Dr. Ghinassi it's good to see you as always um let me just start with I think what a lot of parents are thinking which is what can you do preventatively before the year really gets underway to make sure that you've kind of got a pulse on your child's mental health well I appreciate you asking I mean this is one of those moments when communication is everything I think keeping those lines of communication open utilizing family channels whether it's the traditional family meal or whether it's the regular chat uh if your student is somebody who has a rhythm around that this is a time to reinforce that and listening and looking for behaviors that are different patterns of behavior that are somewhat different than what you're used to in your uh young adult or adolescent uh I mentioned some uh pretty Stark statistics there at the top when it comes to teen suicide we know that this epidemic is um among us but where do you think we stand in our public education system with how schools are reacting and also tackling the issue um which you know a lot of times gets spotted there before it does at at home yeah no I you know I think it's a very very challenging job educating uh the Youth of America the educational system uh you know it's a wonderful wonderful public service that we have and those teachers and administrators have many many tasks that they do I do think they're a wonderful job of they do a wonderful job of looking for signs and symptoms uh I believe they have done a good job more recently at looking for those early kind of harbingers of Behavioral changes and finally I would like to compliment them on a growing uh effort to communicate with and collaborate with organizations across the system we're working closely with many schools across the state as our other Behavioral Health institutions and the state itself which is now rolling out a number of programs that are trying to bring Behavioral Health more into the realm of connection with youth and teachers so and I don't want to put words in your mouth but really maintaining mental health behavioral health services um for students at schools you see that as key I do and I think embedding those services in a way that can be supportive to the administrators and teachers and far more important can be readily accessible to the students as these early symptoms come up I agree with you yes Dr jasi let me just ask you quickly about bullying obviously there have been a lot of cases about it in the media um it's more and more being widely shared on social media how does that factor in and what advice can you give um to families about how to tackle that well you know it's interesting uh social media has now taken bullying that used to be a onetoone issue or a few kids to a few children uh and it's now become something where hundreds of people are involved we're we're looking to try and help individuals limit and balance the amount of time that they use social media with other activities that include face-to-face activity communal activity with friends that's actually real and in a room together and also helping those teens to balance their perception with individuals who are caring a and to stay clear of sites where it's obvious that that kind of judgment is happening Dr. Frank Ghinassi thanks so much for your time thank you very much always good to see [Music]