Anne Arundel health department struggles to manage youth mental health crisis

Calls made by children to the Anne Arundel County crisis line have increased sharply since the pandemic began more than two years ago, one of a few troubling trends in youth mental health presented by the county health officer to the Anne Arundel County Council on Monday night. Members of the council, which sits as the Board of Health twice a year, expressed concern about the data presented by Health Officer Nilesh Kalyanaraman, who noted that children called the county’s crisis phone line about 223 times a month in fiscal 2020, which began about nine months prior to the pandemic. The number of calls rose to an average of 302 a month in fiscal 2021 and increased again to about 352 calls a month in the current fiscal year — a 58% increase over three years.