Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker recently announced that he signed a bill focused on mandating mental health screenings for students, becoming the first state to do so.
Signed into law on Thursday, the new legislation will reportedly require public school students from grades 3 to 12 to be screened for their mental health. The change is set to go into effect for the 2027-2028 school year. At least one mental health screening is required per student.
The bill will also have the Illinois State Board of Education provide free resources for schools to hold these screenings, offering model policies and guidance by this time next year. The state of Illinois will also partner with psychiatric hospitals and schools to highlight the BEACON system. BEACON uses resources from state departments to provide families with these behavioral health services.
“Mental health is essential to academic readiness and lifelong success. Too often, we only recognize a student’s distress when it becomes a crisis,” said State Superintendent of Education Dr. Tony Sanders in a statement. “With universal screening, we shift from reaction to prevention. The earlier we identify a need, the better support we can provide to that student to help them thrive – in school and in life.”
The latest bill is an expansion of the state’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative. Launched in 2022, the initiative focused on helping families receive the services they needed to ensure the healthy development of their children, offering social work, psychological help and counseling services to over 100,000 children and youth.
The initiative comes as a mental health crisis continues to grow amongst children in the U.S.
Per the CDC, the youth are experiencing increasing depressive symptoms, suicidal thoughts and behaviors. According to the CDC, four percent of children aged 3-17 have current, diagnosed depression, while 11% also report current, diagnosed anxiety.
Amongst teens, 40% of U.S. high school students in 2023 said that they felt persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness.
About 20% reported that they had considered committing suicide, while 9% reported that they had gone through with their suicide plan.
Despite having mental health issues, 20% of adolescents said that they currently had unmet mental health care needs.
“Access to mental healthcare—especially for children—is too often overlooked or ignored,” said Gov. Pritzker in his announcement. “Since the formation of the Children’s Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative, we’ve seen our state agencies work closely together and swiftly make progress in evaluating and redesigning the support systems we need to ensure that our children are healthy.”
