Colorado’s free youth therapy program has served almost 6,000 young people since it was created over a year ago, but some mental healthcare providers say the program has limitations.
Last year, lawmakers decided to put nearly $500 million of COVID relief funding into remaking the state’s behavioral healthcare system. As part of that, Colorado’s Behavioral Health Administration launched I Matter, a free therapy program for kids. It was created through House Bill 21-1258, which was passed during the 2021 legislative session, and aimed to increase access to mental health and substance use services for Colorado’s youth.
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated depression, anxiety and other mental health challenges for kids in Colorado and across the country. According to the Colorado Health Institute’s Colorado Health Access Survey, the percent of Colorado adolescents reporting poor mental health doubled between 2017 and 2021, from 9% to 19%.
“We just saw unprecedented rates of mental health concerns worsening over those years after the onset of the pandemic,” says Dr. Jessica Hawks, the clinical director of the Pediatric Mental Health Institute at Children’s Hospital Colorado. “And, yes, we continue to see astronomical rates of mental health concerns across the entire Children’s Hospital, Colorado system and across the state and the country.”
Between the first half of 2019 and the first half of 2022, Children’s Hospital Colorado reported an 88% increase in patients coming to its emergency department due to mental health crises.
Representative Dafna Michaelson Jenet, who represents Adams County-based District 32, played a large part in crafting House Bill 21-1258 and was one of its main sponsors. She says witnessing young peoples’ experience of the pandemic, including that of her own kids, motivated her to tackle childhood mental health as a lawmaker.
“After having spent a couple of years behind closed doors and behind masks and being told they could die if they hug their friends, they were not ready to go back to school,” she says. “So I was trying to figure out how could we get therapy for any kid in Colorado who wanted it.”
Youth can enroll in the program online, where they are prompted to fill out a survey about their mental health. Once the survey is completed, youth and parents are referred to therapists for six free sessions. Once the six sessions are over, the program helps hand-off kids to other programs for additional therapy, if needed.
Chris Weiss heads the Second Wind Fund, a nonprofit suicide prevention organization that provides 12 therapy sessions to youth who are in crisis and at risk of suicide. He supports the I Matter program’s goal of providing free therapy, but he says it needs to collaborate more with established organizations like his that are already doing the work.
