USUSA lobbied the legislature for more mental health funding

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students.

Utah State University Student Association’s executive council attempted to address that statistic by lobbying for mental health funding on Friday at the state capitol. The council worked together with other colleges across the state to raise awareness about the importance of funding mental health services for universities.

Trevor Olsen is the president of the USUSA executive council and the president of the Utah Student Association, a group made up of university student body presidents throughout the state. The purpose of USA is to work with the Commissioner of Higher Education and the Utah Board of Regents, among other groups to promote the needs of higher education. Their current USA crusade is to raise awareness about the lack of funding for mental health services for university students.

“One out of every four college students considers suicide,” Olsen said.

To address these needs, the USA drafted a mental health resolution with the hopes of turning it into a bill for the 2016 legislative session but they missed the deadline.

The resolution addresses Utah’s suicide problem and by pointing out that some college students have a waiting period of up to eight weeks before they can see a counselor. It isn’t uncommon for rural campuses to not have any counselors whatsoever, including USU’s Uintah Basin campus.

“Students may wait three-fourths of the semester waiting for mental health care,” Olsen said.

USA is working to make sure Utah provides its college students with the best mental health services, he said.

“We want to ensure college students succeed mentally as well as academically,”Olsen said. “We want people to feel like they are not alone. Sometime we forget that we can each individually touch lives.”

Rep. Brian Shiozawa, R-Salt Lake City, was an emergency physician in hospitals for many years, and said he supports the Mental Health Resolution.

“It is sobering to think the leading cause of death for college students is suicide,” he said. “To have no other options but to go to the ER because they have no one else to turn to is devastating.”

Shiozawa said he planned on distributing the resolution to the other senators on the capitol.

“You may actually save some lives with this,” he said as he held up the resolution and addressed the USA body.

Regardless of missing the deadline to turn the resolution into a bill and eager to save lives, USA still wanted to promote the Mental Health Resolution. They pushed the resolution this year so they could hopefully pass it as a bill during the 2017 Legislative session. USA worked with Rep. Steve Eliason, R-Sandy, with the intention of sponsoring the Mental Health Resolution as a bill next year. In exchange, Eliason wanted USA to publicly support his current mental health bill, H.B. 265. Eliason said he has sponsored other bills in the past that address Utah’s mental health problem.

“Utah is fourth in the nation for suicides,” he said. “Children are dying and nobody is taking time to address the problem until recently.”

Since his time as a representative, Eliason passed some bills to make mental health more of a priority within Utah. He is continuing that legacy by sponsoring H.B. 265 this session, also known as the Mental Health Practitioner Amendments. It would give tax credits for psychiatrists and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners under certain circumstances.

“Utah is bottom tenth in the nation for psychiatric compensation,” he said. “H.B. 265 would give tax credits for psychiatrists to incentivize them to practice in Utah.”

While the bill supports mental health, USUSA president Trevor Olsen said he didn’t feel comfortable publicly supporting the bill.

“USU students don’t need psychiatrists,” he said. “We need more counselors.”

Utah State University did just approve funding at the student fee board meeting two weeks ago to fund the university psychiatrist full-time instead of part-time.

Also, Olsen said he didn’t want to support H.B. 265 because would make provide funding for private psychiatrists rather than university counselors.

“I felt like I was being politicked by Eliason,” Olsen said. “I just don’t know enough about his bill to publicly support it.”

Olsen said he still plans on pushing the Mental Health Resolution as a bill for next year’s legislative session, but he said he plans on finding another legislator to sponsor the resolution as a bill.

— morgan.pratt.robinson@gmail.com