2025 Policy Recommendation
Prioritize recruiting mental health professionals that represent Vermont’s population, including people of color, disabled professionals, and those with lived experience related to mental health conditions and the mental health system. Renewed Policy Recommendation (2024)
What It Means
The number of children needing mental health, behavioral, and emotional supports and services and the acuity of those needs are continuing to increase. The evolving mental health needs of children and their families in Vermont, along with the increasing costs of providing care, continue to put significant strain on the mental health workforce. While the population of Vermont is changing, the mental health workforce does not yet reflect these changes.
Why It Matters
Between 2017 and 2021, the rate of children with a diagnosis of ADHD, anxiety, depression, and/or a behavioral or conduct condition in Vermont rose from 8.8% to 16% for children ages 3 to 8. Data continues to suggest that the mental health workforce is struggling to recruit and retain mental health professionals to match the rate that families and their children in the state need care. Recruiting new mental health providers to the state, particularly those who identify as Black, Indigenous, people of color, or disabled, is critical to ensure we can best serve the mental health needs of an increasingly diverse state.
Connects to VECAP Goal 3:
All children and families have access to high-quality opportunities that meet their needs.
Spotlight on Equity
While Vermont’s population is 91% white, 18% of Vermont’s youth identify as people of color and 26% identify as queer. It is critical for young people to have access to mental health practitioners who have shared lived experience.
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