More than a dozen Johnson County parents whose kids are struggling with mental health issues gather every week to commiserate, brainstorm and sometimes just vent about struggles at home.
Many of them face similar issues — like monitoring their child’s social media use and keeping tabs on their social and school life — all while juggling their own mental health.
Jordan Boux, a team leader for children and family services with the Johnson County Mental Health Center, said even the most equipped parent will struggle without support.
“When parents’ own life doesn’t have balance, it’s not going to be easy to then take care of others,” she said.
Those common dilemmas pushed Boux and others at the Johnson County Mental Health Center to formally establish a parent support team in January, after attendance at a similar group ballooned. The center also hosts classes that connect parents with mental health experts and resources to manage things back home.
A new assessment by Children’s Mercy Kansas City suggests 17.4% of parents in the area reported their child’s mental health as “fair” or “poor,” and 11% reported their child as feeling “sad” or “hopeless.”
The reality is, those numbers are likely even higher, said Boux, who is also a parent.
Among children nationwide aged 12 to 17 years, 20% have experienced a depressive episode, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. In 2023, about 40% of high school students expressed feelings of persistent sadness or hopelessness, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That’s why Boux believes a parent-focused approach is the key for therapists, social workers and others working in youth mental health.
“When we meet with kids it’s only for an hour or two hours,” Boux said, “while most of the time parents are the ones in the trenches.”
“If we aren’t able to support parents to identify risk factors, develop effective communication skills, we are really missing a big opportunity to reach kids at a higher level.”
Creating open communication
Boux and her team at Johnson County Mental Health usually work with more severe cases, where parents have several layers of stressors. But even parents whose kids are experiencing mild issues need support, she said, and those parents often have a tougher time identifying an issue in the first place.
That’s something Heidi Tomassi, whose son, Griffin, survived a fentanyl overdose, has experienced in her personal and professional life. While Tomassi isn’t a member of the parent support group, she has experienced many of the same things.
“I think we can all be guilty of a ‘not my kid’ mentality,” she said.
There were few warning signs before Tomassi’s family found Griffin gasping for air in January 2022. The overdose shook the family to its core, she said.
It also pushed her to advocate for kids and parents dealing with addiction issues. In her work as Olathe Public Schools' first fentanyl and substance abuse education specialist, mental health is a constant concern, and she said many parents struggle to identify if their kids are doing as well as they say they are.
“As a parent, that's just a way to protect ourselves,” Tomassi said. “We want to be in or create safe bubbles, safe friendship groups, safe homes and a safe community.”
One hurdle Tomassi works to overcome is a generational divide. Though mental health is today a common topic of conversation, Tomassi said many parents grew up in families or environments where it was taboo to speak about feelings and emotions.
And, though public health organizations once pushed simple statements telling kids not to do drugs and teachers taught rhymes suggesting words alone can’t leave lasting damage, Tomassi said kids today respond much better to honesty and open conversation.
Before her son’s overdose, Tomassi’s own hesitancy to talk about what can be uncomfortable subjects stemmed from a lack of information, she said. It continued until she found good resources to help navigate the situation.
“These resources are important because it gives parents clarity on what’s accurate, when it’s easy to get misdiagnoses or bad info,” Tomassi said. When she meets with parents, she will “actually navigate those links and those resources together, so that parents, if they are ever in a situation where you're looking for some support or some guidance, they know how to access that.”
Opening new avenues
While helping coach parents through tough times is critical for Boux, it isn’t always easy to correct behavior ingrained in them through experience — personal, cultural or otherwise.
Everybody is unique, Boux said. That’s why her team at the mental health center is always looking for new ways to reach the community, including plans for a group focused on Black parents.
“We’re talking about people who have a lot of skills,” Boux said, “(but) they have their own layers of stress — work, livelihood, experiences with mental health, their kids.”
One way Children’s Mercy Kansas City is approaching the parent side of the youth mental health equation is a focus on adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs. Examples include violence and abuse at home, growing up with family who have mental health problems, or even parents separating.
These potentially traumatic events are linked to chronic health problems, mental illness, and substance abuse, and are often a direct result of a child’s relationship with their parents.
In Kansas City, more than half of kids report one adverse experience and 13% report three or more, according to the recent Children’s Mercy community assessment.
Michelle Wimes, chief equity and inclusion officer at Children’s Mercy Kansas City, said the most common experience for kids in the metro was financial strife, affecting 26% of respondents with an ACE.
The Children’s Mercy report is set to be formalized and published by June 30. The hospital will then turn its findings into actionable steps for parents by November.
“We need to focus particularly on how we talk about trauma and the impact it has on these children,” Wimes said. “As we think about how these things have lead to traumatic experiences in children’s lives, we need to think about what we can do as a hospital to be more focused on trauma-informed care.”
