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Colorado has made significant improvements in connecting young people with the mental health care they need, according to the mental health advocacy organization Inseparable's latest School Mental Health Report Card.

Many of those gains could be erased if the Trump administration signs off on cuts to Medicaid.

Senator Dafna Michaelson Jenet, D-Commerce City, said Colorado relies on Medicaid dollars to reach students where they spend most of their time - in school.

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"We use Medicaid to cover a lot of school-based health center care," Michaelson Jenet pointed out. "We could lose that completely, and then how do we fund our school based health centers?"

Since the last report card in 2022, Colorado has improved the ratio of mental health professionals to students by adding 43 percent more psychologists and 70 percent more social workers. Colorado also got good marks for creating school environments embracing mental health, for example by allowing excused mental health absences and not disciplining students through exclusion.

The state also instituted annual mental health screenings but the future of the program is in question after Colorado's Joint Budget Committee, facing a $2 billion budget deficit, recently cut its funding.

Caitlin Hochul, vice president of public policy for Inseparable, said when you catch a condition early on, students are more likely to be more engaged in school, have academic success and perform better in the workforce later on.

"We really emphasize providing annual screenings to students so you can catch some of those symptoms or flags early on," Hochul explained. "Then connecting them with some of the care that they need."

Under Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights, voters would have to approve any new revenues to pay for screenings and other initiatives not making the cut. Michaelson Jenet emphasized she is working to keep effective programs to protect children in place.

"One of the things that I'm grateful that the budget protected this year is the I Matter program, offering free therapy for any school-age youth who wants it," Michaelson Jenet noted. "From the beginning of I Matter, we have seen our suicide rate go down."