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New Jersey May Roll Out Utah’s Teen Mental Health App

Gov. Phil Murphy said Saturday he wanted to take a deeper look at SafeUT, a program that lets students click on the app after downloading it and instantly connect to a mental health professional.

Mental health face icons, with the one on the left in red making a sad face, the middle one in yellow making a neutral face, and the one on the right in green making a happy face.
Shutterstock
(TNS) — An app that has saved the lives of at least 300 young people in Utah may be heading to New Jersey.

Gov. Phil Murphy said Saturday he wanted to take a deeper look at SafeUT, a program that lets students click on the app after downloading it and instantly connect to a mental health professional.

“The answers are out there,” Murphy said at a press conference to mark the end of the National Governors Association’s winter meeting in Washington. “We know what works. It’s both frustrating and disheartening that we haven’t put it all together yet as a nation, but also a source of great optimism that we can do that.”

Murphy has made addressing youth mental health his signature initiativeas chair of the National Governors Association, and the topic was the focus of one of two major sessions held Saturday at the group’s annual winter meeting.

“The stigma associated with this — mental health versus physical heath — is jaw-dropping,” Murphy said at the session.

At the subsequent press conference, Murphy, a Democrat and the current chair of the association, yielded the podium to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican and the current vice chair, to talk about his state’s efforts to address the mental health crisis among young people.

Cox said he estimates the program has saved more than 300 lives.

“It really is phenomenal the use that it’s getting, kind of meeting kids where they are — the technology part of this — and then getting them real help,” Cox said.

Murphy said the Utah program would be one of several included in a playbook he planned to issue at the end of his tenure as chair of the organization. The playbook would contain best practices among states to address the mental health crisis, which has only gotten worse due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to several studies.

“A lot of this is sharing best practices of stuff that already exists,” Murphy said. “It’s not that hard to rip a page out of somebody else’s playbook.”

The National Governors Association usually acts in a bipartisan fashion — both Democratic and Republican leaders pushed for state and local funding in coronavirus stimulus legislation even as GOP lawmakers unanimously opposed the money — and mental health has been no exception.

“This is an issue that transcends both state and party lines,” Murphy said at the beginning of Saturday’s session. “This issue for so many of us is personal. As leaders, one of the most important and shared responsibilities is protecting the health and wellbeing of our kids.”

The governors met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House Friday. Biden credited Murphy’s “prodding” to get the federal government to “move in a significant way to deal with the mental health problems.”

Besides the Utah app, Murphy cited initiatives in Ohio, led by a Republican governor, and Colorado, where the governor is a Democrat.

At the session, Cox told his own story of mental health problems after his parents divorced and he was bullied as a kid.

“Just knowing that piece — you’re not alone — can have a tremendous impact,” Cox said

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said he, too, battled depression growing up.

“I didn’t know who to talk to,” he said at the session. “I thought my own struggles meant something was wrong with me.”

In his State of the State address in January, Murphy talked about “leading in prioritizing youth mental health through comprehensive means that don’t just connect kids with resources but empower parents and educators to identify negative signs and provide positive support.”

And he also touted his new “Arrive Together” program, where a plainclothes police officer is paired with a mental health professional when responding to a person with a mental health crisis, and they decide when they arrive which person will get out of the car to respond.

Last year, Murphy offered $16 million in grants to help higher education institutions address the mental health needs of their students, and introduced a statewide plan in New Jersey to identify and refer students in need of mental health services outside their school.

NJ Advance Media reported in 2019 on the state’s rising suicide rate among teenagers and young adults.

Murphy, who arrived in Washington Wednesday night, was scheduled to return to New Jersey Sunday after several days of doing double-duty as chair of both the NGA and the Democratic Governors Association.

© 2023 Advance Local Media LLC. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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