MU psychiatrist: bullying has gone from the playground to social media

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, more American children committed suicide in 2014 than died in traffic accidents. A psychiatrist for the University of Missouri’s School of Medicine said bullying and social media have been factors.

“We know there is an increased risk of suicide if you have a mental illness,” Dr. Laine Young-Walker said.

Young-Walker also points to increased school pressure and the stigma still attached to mental illnesses, such as depression and anxiety. She said kids can struggle with depression and anxiety, just like adults.

“Depression can increase your risk of potentially having a suicidal event or episode,” Young-Walker said. “There are rising rates of mental illness in our population. Whether that’s from increased identification or lessening of the stigma so more people are willing to come seek help. I think there are many things that play a role into that increase in depression and other psychiatric illnesses.”

Young-Walker also said kids may be dealing with other things such as the stress and pressure of academics and what they feel they have to accomplish to be successful.

She also said different social interactions at school or in the community where they are picked on or bullied may also contribute.

“I’m not necessarily an expert in bullying,” Young-Walker said. “But bullying is definitely an issue that comes up over and over again in the students we treat.”

Young-Walker said bullying has gone from the playground to social media. Even after kids go home from school, bullying can still follow them online.

“One definite thing that is different about bullying now than in the early 90s and that is social-media,” Young-Walker said. “We didn’t have Facebook, and Twitter, and all these other social media accounts that I’m not even familiar with but our kids are.”

Young-Walker said now with social media, people are putting things on these different outlets and picking on and bullying kids that they can’t turn off.

“I think that is one definitive change,” Young-Walker said. “The way in which kids are being victimized is not just physical.”

Health care providers and government agencies have started recognizing adolescent suicide has become a problem, according to Young-Walker. As a result, federal, state and local government health organizations have increased grant money in support of accessible mental-health programs.

The Bridge Program is a grant-funded program as well as supported by tax dollars from a mental health tax passed in 2012.

“We are accountable to Boone County,” Chris Petner said. Petner is a nurse program manager for the Bridge Project.

The project is staffed by MU psychiatrists and two MU nurse managers, aimed at bringing psychiatric care to local schools. The program also works with school counselors and families of children needing care.

“We have had overwhelming support from the community, mostly focused from schools working collaboratively from outreach counselors,” Petner said. “We are also seeing a lot of referrals coming from primary-care physicians in the community that want a psychiatrist to lay eyes on their kiddos.”

The wait time for new patients to start mental-health treatment can be months-long sometimes.

“There are multiple things I have worked on with the department of psychiatry to reduce the risk for young kids and to increase access to mental-health treatment,” Young-Walker said. “And the bridge program is really one of those things. It bridges care for kids who have not been able to intervene or get into mental-health treatment for whatever reason.”

The program also aims to reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness and bringing more people to seek treatment who need it.

“By doing that, we’re reaching kids in their own natural environment,” Petner said. “That’s where kids are 8 hours a day the majority of time.”

With “bridge,” a child psychiatrist and nurse case manager go to the schools and see the child in the school for an initial assessment and follow-up visits as necessary. Sometimes the doctor will recommend therapy and will help match the student with the appropriate doctor.

“We really are the child psychiatrists who are providing the psychiatric evaluation, the follow-up care, and that connection between the school, the parents, and the kids,” Young-Walker said.

The program will treat kids ages 5 through 18. However if a student is still in high school after turning 18, they will continue to treat the student.

“The program increases access and our hope in increasing access is to reduce the number of emergency room visit, or kids who get to the point where they can’t take it anymore and think about suicide or attempt suicide,” Young-Walker said.

Young-Walker said sometimes kids use dramatic words to get their point across, and while parents should take them seriously, she said they should try not to catastrophize the statements. She said parents shouldn’t be afraid of asking direct questions such as, “Are you truly thinking of taking your own life?”

Young-Walker says if a parent or teacher asks the question, and the honest answer is “yes”, or if the parent or teacher has concerns about safety, the best thing to do is take your child to the emergency room right away.