Draft Letter to the editor by Karl Schwalm

Newspaper Article for Child and Adolescent Health
Two to three years ago the Child and Adolescent Work Group was formed here in Garrett County. This is under the auspices of the Health Planning Council. The Health Planning Council is a multi-disciplinary group that meets monthly at the Garrett County Health Department to become more informed about health topics in the county and to help our local health department decide health priorities for our community’s future.
During some of those Health Council meetings, a pattern was noticed that our statistics for adolescent health were worrisome. Of the 24 counties in Maryland, we were either worst or among the worst in a large number of categories relating to teens. This was based on statistics supplied by Maryland Medicaid and the Youth Risk Factor Survey (YRBS), a survey of middle and high school students taken every 2-3 years. Examples of those statistics included: both smoked and smokeless tobacco use, alcohol use, binge drinking, teen pregnancy, child abuse, adolescents receiving annual wellness visits. Arising out of all of this came the idea that perhaps the most achievable goal of all of these would be to get adolescents to see their primary care provider for an annual wellness visit, and thus the workgroup was formed to address this.
Educational meetings were held for primary care providers, to both educate them about our county statistics and to encourage them to make efforts to get more teens in for wellness visits. The thought was that if they get more kids in for these visits, they could then use those visits to discuss things like smoking, drugs, alcohol, pregnancy, etc. A member of the committee then followed up with all of the providers’ offices to encourage those providers to buy into this idea. All of the major provider offices have agreed to supply us with statistics on an ongoing basis to see if we are actually improving on seeing more teens for wellness visits. Unfortunately, Covid-19 has descended upon us and those statistics are less forthcoming since patients, in general, are going to primary care offices less.
Meanwhile, although the group was set up to address the specific problem of adolescent wellness check-ups, members of our committee then were interested in other adolescent topics. We have explored with the schools changing how the health curriculum is presented to students. Rather than simply having designated health classes, we were interested in a program being developed in Worcester County, whereby health education is presented at all age levels in a variety of classes. It would be a more practical approach with day-to-day problems that children face rather than a theoretical all-in-one health class. The school is working on such a curriculum.
Our Health Department already has ongoing programs specifically addressing tobacco, alcohol, and drug use, so we decided to turn our attention elsewhere. Part of our effort to decide what issues to address included surveying middle and high school students and parents. We wanted to see how parent and student answers might differ (or agree), as well as educate students and parents about some of our worrisome statistics. That survey was done in late 2019 and early 2020—before Covid hit, so they should not have been affected by the pandemic. One of the results of the survey was that parents and students both listed anxiety, stress, and depression highest among their areas of concern. We can only imagine what the Covid pandemic has done to those anxiety levels, at least in some students. Thus, we have decided to address some aspects of adolescent mental health. We have made of list of all mental health providers in the county, including ages of clients that they see, insurances accepted, hours, and locations. That will be distributed to primary care providers, as well as all agencies that make referrals. If you’re interested in viewing a current copy visit                                          https://mygarrettcounty.com/?get_group_doc=18/1603824708-MasterForm.docx  or call the Behavioral Health Authority located at the Garrett County Health Department to maintain a physical copy.

We are committed to working together to continue to find solutions to help our young people and their families successfully navigate the adolescent years and welcome anyone interested in joining the efforts to visit https://mygarrettcounty.com/groups/increase-adolescent-well-child-checks/raw-data/. Currently, our meetings are held virtually on the first Wednesday of each month. You can contact Beth Brenneman for the meeting call-in or log-in information at 301-334-7777. We welcome interested people to join us!