Youth Mental Health

Helping Nebraska’s youth access the mental health support they need early, when it matters most.

North Star Vision

Nebraska’s youth benefit from timely and effective mental health care seamlessly woven into schools, healthcare, and community systems, helping them thrive and grow.

Potential Strategies

  • Strengthen and scale school-based mental health services, as well as partnerships between schools and community-based providers, to reduce waitlists and address depression, anxiety, suicide risk, and other mental health challenges early.

  • Invest in evidence-based education, screening, and prevention approaches that equip educators, caregivers, and youth-serving professionals to identify emerging mental health and substance use concerns early, before they escalate to crisis.

  • Expand availability of specialized youth and adolescent providers, including psychiatry, crisis response, and substance use treatment, to address complex needs such as severe depression, anxiety, suicidality, and co-occurring drug and alcohol use.

  • Improve coordination across schools, healthcare, behavioral health, child welfare, juvenile justice, and other systems to reduce referral breakdowns, prevent youth from falling out of care, and support transitions to adult services.

  • Support strategies that reduce social isolation, strengthen peer, school, and community connections, and promote healthy social media use and digital habits that protect against depression, anxiety, substance use, and suicide risk.

  • Expand caregiver and parent education programs that help families recognize early warning signs, navigate waitlists, and support youth mental health across home, school, and community settings.

  • Address provider shortages through workforce development strategies that increase recruitment, training, and retention of professionals serving children and adolescents.