A Dent in the Darkness

As the world rounds the corner on the second year with COVID-19, an unsteady new mix of heightened anxiety and mental stresses has emerged in young people, threatening to exacerbate New Mexico’s persistently high rate of death by suicide, experts and advocates tell SFR.

But despite another year of concerning figures, investments in community-based services and the arrival of more statewide resources project hope.

“We’re seeing numbers, right, in November that we would normally not see until about February, typically in a school year,” says Carlotta Saiz, program manager of the Sky Center, a family counseling provider in Santa Fe focused on youth suicide prevention.

The Sky Center’s heavier caseload clearly signals that the need for mental health services is greater this year.

And that continues a trend.

The number of deaths by suicide for children under 18 increased dramatically in 2017—double that of the year prior, according to the state Department of Health. Since then, the number of youth suicides each year has lingered above 25 individuals, higher than numbers documented in the early 2010s.

The lion’s share of youth deaths by suicide in the last five years occurred in the state’s metro region, which encompasses Sandoval, Bernalillo, Valencia and Torrance counties.

In the northeastern region of the state, which includes Santa Fe County and nine others, the DOH reported total 17 youth suicides between 2016 and 2020, the most recent year for which state health data is available. Five of those deaths were Santa Fe County residents.

In a 2019 cover story, SFR reported Santa Fe County had few options to support young people experiencing a mental health crisis. With no inpatient beds for adolescents experiencing suicidal ideations, young people in the county traveled to Albuquerque, or even Las Cruces, to find a safe place to spend the night.

That was before the pandemic began exacting its invisible toll—and it hasn’t changed: Santa Fe County still doesn’t have overnight inpatient services for youths.

“The county is just now devoting significant resources in the area of youth behavioral health,” says Rachel O’Connor, director of Santa Fe County’s Community Services Department. “It’s an evolution of a practice.”

Since the pandemic began, the county has used over $140,000 in gross receipts tax revenue to contract with the Sky Center and Teambuilders, a counseling provider in Santa Fe, for a year of services, explains O’Connor.

There’s more relief coming, too, O’Connor tells SFR. The county plans to allocate $700,000 from the American Rescue Plan Act to expand existing services for youths.

This summer the county opened a detox and crisis center to help address behavioral health issues, says O’Connor. In addition, the county launched a mobile crisis team to respond to incidents when an individual is experiencing a behavioral health crisis. It serves county residents as young as 14.

At the Sky Center, housed at Ortiz Middle School, the staff are well aware of how important it is to reach even pre-teens.

“We’re seeing a younger demographic…saying they’re having thoughts of suicide than we have seen historically,” Saiz says. This year, they’ve served children as young as 8 or 9.

Explaining the pandemic’s crushing impact on youths, Saiz says, “Teenagers probably, I think, were impacted more devastatingly than anyone, just because of where they are at developmentally.

“Social connection is such an important part of that developmental process at that age.”

New Mexico’s trendline mirrors the nation’s, as documented in a public health advisory on the pandemic’s impact on the crumbling mental health of youths from the US Surgeon General.

Depression and anxiety symptoms have doubled during the pandemic, the report says. Earlier this year, a survey of emergency room visits nationwide for suspected suicide attempts rose 51% for adolescent girls and and 4% for boys.

In states like New Mexico, with significant portions of rural areas, it’s difficult to get behavioral support to people in remote regions, explains Molly McCoy Brack, the director of Agora Crisis Center in Albuquerque.

But McCoy Brack is encouraged by what’s coming to New Mexico to better serve the whole state, including rural communities. By July 2022 the entire country should have a different emergency number to call, instead of 911, during behavioral health crises.

In July, dialing 988 in New Mexico could direct callers to Agora and a team of volunteers trained to de-escalate crises and connect those at risk with services if necessary, including mobile crisis teams like the one recently established in Santa Fe County.

While the trends concern Saiz, she’s in the business of cultivating hope, not grim statistics.

She and her team at the Sky Center are rushing to get “as far ahead as we can in front of suicide.”