Mental health hotline numbers would appear on California college student ID cards if bill passes
Categories: US Education News
Three years after California required colleges to put suicide prevention phone numbers on all student ID cards, a group of students wants to take the push for student wellness a step further: By adding a 24-hour mental health hotline.Assembly Bill 2122, introduced last month, would require all community colleges and California State University campuses to print a phone number on student identification cards for local mental health services, either through the city, county or the college itself. The hotline would be optional for the University of California because the Legislature doesn’t have authority over UC.
Most campuses already have mental health centers, but not all have 24-hour crisis numbers. The bill encourages those without mental health centers to create one and urges all campuses to establish mental health hotlines.“Mental health is often overlooked until it’s too late – students start suffering from extreme burnout, disengagement, dropping grades.
There’s so much schools can do to help students before they reach that point,” said Léo Corzo-Clark, a recent graduate of Albany High School in the East Bay who helped write the bill with his colleagues at Generation Up, a California student advocacy group. Assemblyman Steven Choi, R-Irvine, sponsored the bill.
The Assembly Committee on Higher Education is slated to hear the bill Tuesday. It follows two other student wellness bills – SB 972, which requires high schools and colleges to print a suicide hotline on ID cards, and SB 316, which places domestic violence hotlines on student ID cards – that passed in recent years, along with a slew of legislation related to student mental health generally.
California State University, which is not opposing the bill, has greatly expanded its student mental health services since the start of the pandemic two years ago. Each of its 23 campuses offers counseling services for students in person and online, and a $15 million state grant allows each campus to hire more counselors and other staff to meet the escalating needs.
Three bills relate to K-12 schools: SB 955 would require schools to excuse students for absences related to political or civic engagement, such as attending a protest, voting or volunteering as a poll worker. SB 997 would boost student representation on governing committees. SB 1236 would give full voting rights to student members of school boards.