HB 2093 would take Arizona backward on mental health; our children cannot afford that

Francine Sumner

Submitted photo/Jillian Rivera Photography

If You or Someone You Know Needs Help

If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts of suicide, help is available. If you believe there’s immediate danger, call 911 or go to an emergency room.

If you need to talk, call or text 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7. Conversations are free and confidential. Visit 988lifeline.org for more information.

Opinion

Sumner: Suicide prevention — a mother’s call to action

OPINION — On June 13, 2017, I lost my youngest son, Zachary, to suicide. He was 16 years old.

Zach was kind, funny and deeply compassionate. He was the kid who noticed when someone was sitting alone and chose to sit beside them so they wouldn’t feel invisible.

But when Zach began struggling with his own mental health, the people around him didn’t know how to help. His friends didn’t have the language to recognize what he was going through. Our family didn’t know about the life-saving resources that existed in Arizona. And Zach didn’t know how to ask for the help he deserved.

Stigma and silence filled the spaces where education and connection should have been. And despite our love, our effort and our search for answers, we lost him.

No parent should ever have to live with that silence. And no child should ever feel so alone that death feels like the only way out.

I hope lawmakers consider House Bill 2093 and the repeal of required mental health education in schools. After Zach died, I made a promise that his life would matter in a way that saved others. That promise became Kid in the Corner, a nonprofit that teaches students to care for their mental health the same way they care for their physical health. We give them tools. We give them words. We give them courage.

In the eight and a half years since we began this work, we have seen lives changed and, in many cases, saved.

This year in Cave Creek, a sixth-grader shared that she had been silently struggling with anxiety and experiencing increasing thoughts of suicide. After participating in our program, she realized she wasn’t alone and that what she was feeling was shared by others. That understanding gave her the courage to reach out to her school counselor and ask her parents for professional help.

Recently, a fifth-grader quietly approached one of our facilitators and said she thought she needed a therapist but didn’t know how to tell her mom. With her permission, we worked with the school to connect her family to resources. Her mother later told us she knew her daughter was struggling but, without insurance, didn’t realize help was available.

These are not rare stories. They are happening in our schools every single day.

We speak to roughly 5,000 Arizona students each year through our free program. Parents overwhelmingly support this work. Only about 1.5% choose not to have their child participate.

The truth is simple: mental health education is not an “extra.” It is not political or optional fluff. It is prevention, connection and more times than not, its lifesaving.

Education teaches a struggling child how to ask for help. It teaches a friend how to recognize warning signs. It teaches families where to turn before it is too late.

While we hope every child feels comfortable talking to their parents, we know that school is often the place where children first find the safety and language to speak up. For some kids, a teacher, counselor, or school-based program is the only bridge between silent suffering and real support.

If we remove mental health education and resources from schools, children who are already under enormous stress will continue to suffer in silence. We will not eliminate mental health struggles by refusing to talk about them. We will simply make them harder to see — and harder to treat.

If Zach had grown up in a world where mental health was talked about openly, where every student learned these life-saving skills, would things be different? Would my son still be here?

HB 2093 represents a step backward at a time when our children need us to move forward. Protecting mental health education in schools is not about ideology. It is about protecting kids who are quietly hurting.

I stand where no parent ever wants to stand. I am asking lawmakers — as neighbors, as human beings — please do not make it harder for children to get help.

Please protect mental health education in our schools.

We’re fighting for Zach, and for every child still sitting in the corner waiting for someone to notice.

Francine Sumner is CEO of Kid in the Corner, a Scottsdale-based nonprofit that seeks to shatter the stigma that surrounds mental illness so that no family suffers the loss of a loved one to suicide. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.