Talk for any length of time to parents whose children require mental health services and they will share plenty of heartbreaking stories. One mother called 35 mental health practitioners in search of proper services for her suicidal son. One agency told her they had a two-year waiting list. One family's son was bounced among numerous mental health services and prescribed many drugs before he committed suicide at age 19. Many families end up taking children in crisis to hospital emergency rooms as a stopgap measure.

Healthcare officials at Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford told the Connecticut Mirror in May they expected to flag 20,000 children for suicidal ideation in fiscal year 2021. That's a tenfold increase from 2020 numbers.

Securing appropriate, affordable and timely mental health services for children in the state has long been difficult at best. The pandemic, which is approaching its two-year mark, brought illness and fear into many homes and left kids and parents socially isolated. This has only increased the numbers of young people suffering from mental health problems and exacerbated the difficulties of getting children and teenagers properly diagnosed and treated appropriately and effectively.

Among an older age group of young people, mental health issues are reported to be at an all-time high. In announcing a $2.7 million program to enhance mental services at colleges and universities, Gov. Ned Lamont said this week that more than a third of college students report anxiety and depression and 83 percent say their mental health has negatively impacted their academic performance.

The pandemic also has increased the numbers of children and younger teenagers suffering from mental health problems and exacerbated the difficulties of getting proper diagnoses and appropriate and effective treatment.

State lawmakers say they want to change these conditions, a goal with which we wholeheartedly agree. During the upcoming legislative session that begins in February they will prioritize making some reforms to the children's mental health system that leaves too many families confused, exhausted and financially strained and too many children without the care they need.

Despite lawmakers' good intentions, we remind them that they have walked this road before and their efforts have not always made substantive changes. Indeed, state efforts at reform have come and gone and children and families continue to suffer.

One challenge is that mental illnesses can be complex and defy a one-size-fits-all solution. There are challenges at each step in the process: in getting kids' mental health problems recognized, properly diagnosed and appropriately treated. In addition, there are not enough mental health practitioners and they are not always located in the places where kids need help. Practitioners also don't always accept all healthcare insurances.

To better prepare to tackle the many-pronged challenge of mental healthcare in the upcoming three-month legislative session, lawmakers have already begun meeting with experts on children and their mental healthcare needs. They are considering options that include providing more money to attract and retain professionals to the mental healthcare field, waiving licensing requirements that could pave the way for out-of-state practitioners to provide services in Connecticut, increasing the number of training programs for social workers and psychiatrists and providing tax and other incentives to help practitioners buy houses in the state where real estate is relatively scarce and pricey. They also hope to find ways to provide more community mental health services, including school-based services, in recognition that kids need care in spaces near home and where they already feel the most comfortable.

Improving mental healthcare services for kids and families will not be simple and money alone will not provide solutions. Lawmakers must attack the issue on numerous fronts and be committed to revisiting and revising the reforms they institute to ensure they are effective over time.

We commend the legislature for taking on this challenge. There should be no greater reward for lawmakers than finding ways to effectively ease the suffering of children and their families.

The Day editorial board meets with political, business and community leaders to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Timothy Dwyer, Executive Editor Izaskun E. Larraneta, Owen Poole, copy editor, and Lisa McGinley, retired deputy managing editor. The board operates independently from The Day newsroom.