The prevalence of mental health conditions like anxiety and depression among children has been on the rise for over a decade. At the same time, workforce retention challenges have led to treatment capacity shortages. The onset of the pandemic further exposed and exacerbated these existing problems by disrupting behavioral healthcare delivery.

During the pandemic, more children were seeking mental healthcare and services, and they were being met with an overstretched workforce and limited treatment capacity; resulting in massive spikes in behavioral health (BH) boarding. Since the pandemic, there have been major policy improvements to address these issues. However, manifestations of larger system problems like boarding rates have not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Inaccessible mental healthcare for children can lead to worse outcomes throughout their life like school failure or suicide. Yet children often experience more unmet care needs compared to adults with longer wait times and higher rates of BH boarding.