ABSTRACT
Across the country, most professionals caring for children have likely seen an increase in mental illness. Even prior to the COVID‐19 pandemic, there was already a trend of increasing rates of depression and suicidal ideation in American youth (Mojtabai et al., 2016). Since then, the problem has only worsened, as the collective mental health needs of children have been rising rapidly. A combination of factors, from isolation related to school closure and social distancing, to the traumatic effects of losing a parent, have contributed to this dramatic rise in distress (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2021). The CDC reported that the proportion of mental health‐related ED visits increased abruptly after the beginning of the pandemic, with increases of 24% among children aged 5–11 years and 31% among adolescents aged 12–17 years, compared with the same period in 2019 (Leeb et al., 2020). These changes have been widely publicized, and in response to this national crisis, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), and the Children's Hospital Association (CHA) jointly declared a national state of emergency in October 2021 and created a 10‐point outline for meaningful change in the recognition, prevention, and treatment of childhood mental illness (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2021). In addition, the United States Surgeon General issued an advisory on protecting youth mental health in December 2021 (Department of Health and Human Services, 2021).