Drafter
Clerk 04/15/2021
Title
A MOTION relating to programs and services for prevention, outreach, and early intervention to address mental health and substance use impacts in children and youth five through twenty-four years old, which have been exacerbated due to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.
Body
WHEREAS, in 2010, Ordinance 16897 was enacted, establishing the King County Strategic Plan, 2010-2014. In 2015, the council passed Motion 14317, updating and revising King County's vision, mission, guiding principles and goals. Included within the county's goals are improving the health and well-being of all people in King County, implementing alternatives to divert people from the criminal justice system and ensuring that county government operates efficiently and effectively and is accountable to the public, and
WHEREAS, according to the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and eighty studies on the topic, social isolation and loneliness, like that caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, significantly increase the risk of depression and anxiety in previously healthy children and adolescents, and
WHEREAS, a 2014 study done by the University of Southern California of four hundred seventy-six adolescents, with the mean age of fourteen years old, concluded that depression levels directly associated with an increased likelihood of a lifetime use of inhalants, prescription pain killers and many other substances, and
WHEREAS, in a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in June 2020, 40.9 percent of respondents, eighteen years old or older, reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition. Those included 30.9 percent reporting symptoms of anxiety disorder or depressive disorder, 26.3 percent reporting symptoms of a trauma-and stressor-related disorder related to the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and 13.3 percent reported having started or increased substance use to c...

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