The legislators spent much of their time discussing the importance of mental health care for students in schools.

Superintendent Sandra Lewandowski, of Intermediate District 287, pointed out that counseling for kids outside school is uncommon.

“Tragically what we find on a daily basis is that we are in the role of sole service provider for so many of our kids,” Lewandowski said. “Children and adolescents who have fallen through the cracks in the system and whose needs have become too intense or too costly to be provided by community-based mental health treatment programs and even residential mental health programs, but they come to school and we welcome them regularly into our classrooms.”

Later she pointed out that students of color and lower socio-economic status have less access to mental health when compared with wealthier students.

“Perhaps the biggest epiphany for me today was when Superintendent Lewandowski said that rich kids go to therapy and poor kids go to jail, and that just breaks my heart,” Phillips said. “It’s an epidemic in this country, not just relative to mental health but so much that’s wrong.”

Smith and Phillips both affirmed their interest in improving partnerships with mental health providers and schools so students won’t have to miss class to have access to mental health resources.

Phillips argued that health screenings and resources used in schools for younger children can be more efficient and effective because they’re investing upstream.

“There’s no more upstream that we can get than investing in kids in that setting,” Phillips said.

School-based mental health is just one area the experts said the mental health care system suffers disparities of access. When Phillips asked if there’s a country or location that’s a good template to emulate, the panel had a depressingly short answer: no.

Sue Abderholden, executive director of the Minnesota arm of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, clarified that there was nowhere with an untroubled mental health system, but some places do have specific programs working well.

“I think that points to the fundamental challenge that we’re dealing with, which is that the United States is not alone in discriminating against people who have mental health issues,” Smith said.

However, Smith and Phillips said mental health is fertile soil for Republicans and Democrats to find common ground. Phillips emphasized that there isn’t a member of Congress who doesn’t have an invested interest in improving mental health treatment.

“Similarly the issue of the lack of access to mental health care, and all health care in rural areas, is something that cuts across Republican and Democratic lines, and those are two places where I have some hope that we can make some headway here,” Smith said.