Mental health is important at every stage of life and is critical for a girl’s success in school. Yet we are currently facing a mental-health crisis among youth.
Based on the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance of 2023, almost 53% of female students in the U.S. experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness during the past year, and over 27% seriously considered attempting suicide. This issue persists in Canada as well, where emotional, behavioral, and psychosocial problems affect approximately 1.2 million children, yet fewer than 20% receive appropriate treatment.
Girls Inc. affiliates report that world issues have contributed to trauma and mental-health concerns for girls. These environmental and social factors contribute to deteriorating mental health among girls and can have dangerous consequences.
Suzanne Parker
“Many factors impacts girls’ mental health. While community and family dynamics, specific traumatic experiences, and even our genetics play a role in our mental health, media and schools can have an outsized impact, both positive and negative.”
Many factors impacts girls’ mental health. While community and family dynamics, specific traumatic experiences, and even our genetics play a role in our mental health, media and schools can have an outsized impact, both positive and negative.
Role of Media
A recent Pew Research study found that almost half of U.S. teens ages 13-17 use the internet almost constantly, with young girls more likely to spend too much time on social media. Girls particularly face limiting and unrealistic representations of female bodies in the media, which can adversely affect their self-perception, self-worth, and mental health.
Teens’ negative perceptions of their bodies may steer them toward extreme diets or harmful dieting trends. Eating disorders are complex and have a number of social, psychological, and biological causes. Social media is one component of this, as it works to perpetuate the ‘thin ideal,’ especially for young girls.
A researcher at Brown University identified several more risks that social media poses to young girls, including contributing to inadequate amounts of sleep, preventing in-person socialization, exposure to explicitly dangerous content, and even cyberbullying.
On the reverse, moderate use of media that supports users or teaches about well-being or other topics can be a positive resource. Think about how different a comment section full of compliments is!
Role of Schools
Schools could play an important role in connecting girls with the services they need if school staff members are trained to recognize the signs of trauma or other mental-health concerns. Oftentimes, girls, especially girls of color, are disciplined for behavior that may be the result of unaddressed trauma or mental-health issues but is not recognized as such.
Additionally, there is a critical shortage of school counselors, and many high-school counselors report being overburdened by huge caseloads, especially at schools where a majority of children are first-generation and low-income students. The American School Counselor Assoc. (ASCA) recommends maintaining at least one school counselor for every 250 students. For the 2023-24 school year, however, ASCA found that the national average ratio in the U.S. is only 376 to 1.
Why It Matters
Mental health impacts girls’ and young women’s ability to lead healthy, fulfilling, and meaningful lives. Even though mental-health issues are treatable, girls may not receive the services they need if their schools and communities do not have the necessary resources and the adults in their lives do not know how to identify the need for help.
Girls with unaddressed mental-health problems may get punished or withdraw from classes or activities, thereby losing access to critical development opportunities. Mental illness can also be isolating given the stigma that still surrounds seeking treatment or even admitting one suffers from mental-health issues.
“Even though mental-health issues are treatable, girls may not receive the services they need if their schools and communities do not have the necessary resources and the adults in their lives do not know how to identify the need for help.”
What Policymakers Can Do
Policymakers can improve access to, and quality of, mental-health and wellness support for all youth by:
• Protecting and increasing access to mental-health services, including telehealth;
• Increasing funding for school-based mental health professionals and services, including screening, treatment, and outreach programs;
• Increasing funding for evidence-based suicide awareness and prevention programs, as well as mandating that schools train students in suicide and eating-disorder awareness and prevention;
• Strengthening laws, policies, and funding for programs that promote trauma-informed practices, training, and healing-centered engagement for children and families who may have experienced trauma.
• Ensuring that resources in schools are tailored to students’ specific needs, and ensuring access to more inclusive mental-health and wellness education, as well as linguistically accessible and culturally competent services for youth and parents.
We can also encourage appropriate content from media sources and hold social-media platforms accountable for youth mental-health impacts by ensuring they implement robust youth-protection measures and are held accountable for promoting harmful content to minors, through measures including age verification, usage limits, and AI safety scans for inappropriate or dangerous content.
They can also create industry standards to regulate digital alterations, fund research on social media’s impact on youth, and support the promotion of diverse body representation, while also encouraging collaboration among schools, healthcare providers, and communities to offer comprehensive media-literacy education, mental-health support, and body-positive programs.
What We’re Doing at Girls Inc. of the Valley
Girls Inc. Week is celebrated by Girls Inc. affiliates all over the U.S. and Canada. This is a time when we galvanize around topics important to girls.
This year, Girls Inc. Week is happening May 5-9, with the theme “Youth Mental Health: Helping Kids Feel Better,” which was thoughtfully selected by Girls Inc. students. It shines a spotlight on one of the most critical issues facing youth today — mental health — and celebrates the resilience, strength, and proactive spirit of girls.
At Girls Inc. of the Valley, we have a week full of meaningful activities to acknowledge and support their questions and challenges, including our Real Essentials curriculum with a focus on mental health, MADD’s substance-abuse prevention workshop for teens, a fun spa day, and more.
We’ll celebrate the extraordinary achievements of our girls and alumnae, who exemplify what it means to be strong, smart, and bold. Together, we’ll lift up their voices, break down stigmas surrounding mental health, and champion the actions girls are taking to support their peers and communities.
Also, on Thursday, May 8, Girls Inc. is launching its second annual network-wide fundraiser, and Girls Inc. of the Valley is participating to support “Youth Mental Health: Helping Our Kids Feel Better,” right here in the Valley. To learn more about how to participate, visit www.girlsincvalley.org or contact Sasha at sviands@girlsincvalley.org.
