Schoolchildren in grades three through 12 in Illinois will be screened for mental health starting in 2027, under legislation recently signed by Gov. JB Pritzker.
The program, the first of its kind in the nation, was lauded by state Sen. Sara Feigenholtz and the state Democratic Caucus, which said in a statement that children face challenges including “increased rates of sadness, hopelessness and difficulty with schoolwork.”
“At a time when our kids are struggling with anxiety and depression more than ever before, it’s our responsibility to ensure that young people have all the support that they need to get the help that they deserve,” Pritzker said. Earlier this year, the state launched a portal to connect parents, caregivers and youth with mental health services.
The news was not universally applauded. Abigail Shrier, the author of “Bad Therapy,” a 2024 critique of the mental health industry and its effects on kids, called Illinois’ plan “a disastrous policy that will do vastly more harm than good.”
She later published a piece in The Free Press headlined “Stop asking kids if they’re depressed."
“Kids are wildly suggestible, especially where psychiatric symptoms are concerned,” she wrote. She describes an experience she had as a parent, when she took her son to urgent care for stomach pain and was asked to leave the room so the nurse could administer a mental health screening that included the questions “In the past few weeks, have you wished you were dead?” and “Are you thinking of killing yourself right now?”
In The Free Press, Shrier quoted Dr. Allen Frances, a psychiatry professor at Duke University, who told her, “Most kids who screen positive will have transient problems, not mental disorder. Mislabeling stigmatizes and subjects them to unnecessary treatments, while misdirecting very scarce resources away from kids who desperately need them.”
Writing for City Journal, Manhattan Institute policy analyst Carolyn D. Gorman also expressed concern, noting that universal screenings often result in false positives, leading to unnecessary and life-changing treatment.
“Giving children an inaccurate diagnosis can harm their well-being. Even a ‘correct’ diagnosis has potential downsides; it does not explain the cause of a mental health problem, can lock a child into a label, and does not guarantee access to the right treatments. For some young people, medical diagnoses, including mental health diagnoses, can shape their identity and expectations, lead to long-term medication use, affect job prospects, and diminish their sense of control over their future.”
Few specifics were offered about how the program would be implemented; however, the governor said the cost of the screenings would be covered by the state, and not the schools, and that various state agencies would work together to provide services. The state Board of Education has a year to work out the details.
On the Facebook page of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, some parents were skeptical, with one saying, “As a parent I am not letting my kid be screened. By who? What is their training? What will they be asked? Who is funding this? Who sees the results?”
In The Free Press, Shrier acknowledged that many children are “lonely, worried, scared, and bummed out,” but, she said, “The vast majority of our kids and teens are not mentally ill.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 1 in 5 children ages 3 to 17 (21%) have been diagnosed at some time with a “mental, emotional or behavioral health condition.” More specifically, the most recent CDC data show that 11% of children ages 3–17 had current, diagnosed anxiety and 4% had current, diagnosed depression. The numbers rise as children grow older, with 20% of children 12–17 reporting symptoms of anxiety and 18% symptoms of depression.
Children’s mental health has worsened since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children’s Hospital Association to declare a national emergency for children’s mental health in 2021.
Among the group’s recommendations at that time was to “increase implementation and sustainable funding of effective models of school-based mental health care, including clinical strategies and models for payment.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Department of U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, has long expressed concern about the use of psychiatric drugs in children. A report of his “Make America Healthy Again Commission,” released in May, called out the rising numbers of prescriptions written for children for depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
But while there is disagreement about the best way to confront rising mental health struggles, the numbers continue to climb, for both children and adults. As Kevin Lind reported for the Deseret News in May, “Today, the National Institute of Mental Health reports that some 40 million Americans have anxiety disorders — nearly one-fifth of the total U.S. population — and more than 14 million suffer from depression."