This story is part of our continued look at mental-health demands playing out in Minnesota schools.

It's Teacher Appreciation Week, and Minnesota educators say the public should pay closer attention to their efforts in meeting kids' mental-health demands in schools.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted nearly half of U.S. high school students have reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless. Becki Church, a crisis interventionist with the Freshwater Education District cooperative serving multiple districts in western Minnesota, said there's more anger and violence, too. Her program includes behavioral services provided on a designated site for students experiencing higher levels of distress.

Amid higher demand, Church said, staff members are stretched thin trying to help students make it through the day.

"They're burning out on the constant behavior management, and working short-staffed and getting called into this room, then that room, then this room and that room," she said. "We're ping-ponging here, and it's a big struggle."

With a large budget surplus, state lawmakers are being asked to set aside more funding, but they're at odds as they negotiate spending bills. President Joe Biden has called on Congress to approve $1 billion for more mental-health staff in schools. However, with elections looming, it's unclear if the request will be approved.

Jena Osberg, a Level IV site manager for the behavioral program, which has about 25 staffers, said it isn't uncommon now to be short-staffed about five or six people a day, and added that it's hard to attract licensed individuals with the proper training.

"I can't even believe that, in five years, we're going to be able to staff - to get anyone to come in anymore and work," she said, "which is just one more thing that we're failing for these kids."

In addition to extra funding, both educators said a more streamlined licensing process could help recruit personnel to help manage the staffing shortages. Church said partner agencies, such as the state education department and corrections officials, need to bolster communication with schools.

"We have these separate silos that are not talking to each other," she said, "and we need to be more of a community, helping kids."

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to announce its decision on a case, which could upend abortion access across the country. The topic is a source of fiery debate, and one reason could be because of our anxiety about death.

At a webinar hosted by the Seattle-based Ernest Becker Foundation, panelists discussed the link between the anthropologist's work on terror-management theory and the issue of abortion.

Dr. Emily Courtney, social psychologist at the University of South Florida, said people manage their anxiety about death by constructing worldviews, such as religions, ideologies and political orientations. But it also makes people defensive when their worldview is challenged, making topics such as abortion more divisive.

"The fact that we deal with the death anxiety by putting more of our own kind of personal stake in the ideologies that we've adopted as human beings," Courtney explained. "When those things are threatened, we take a step back and things get a little bit more intense when we do confront those issues."

A leaked Supreme Court opinion on the Mississippi abortion case showed justices could be preparing to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade case, which legalized abortion.

Regardless of the ruling, the option will remain legal in Washington state.

Courtney pointed out death is a large part of terror-management theory, but there are other components to our fear of death, including existential threats to our identity and autonomy. Courtney noted threats can present themselves when someone is not able to make the choice to get an abortion.

"So by limiting those choices, you're presenting more of an existential threat to specific groups of people," Courtney emphasized. "Women, people who may be marginalized in society, people who may be in different socio-economic tiers who could simply not support children."

Dr. Lindsey Harvell-Bowman, associate professor at James Madison University and director of the Terror Management Lab, explored more hopeful messages of empathy and trying to neutralize the terror-management defense which can come up on issues such as abortion.

She recommended humanizing people on the other side of this issue from you, and using communication as a way to get there.

"We're all humans," Harvell-Bowman stated. "We all end the same way, and so really in order to enact change we have to engage in meaningful conversations with each other without completely ruining the other side."

On a given day in Massachusetts, more than 100 children and teenagers are brought to hospital emergency rooms because they're facing a mental-health crisis and sometimes have to stay there for days or weeks.

Nonprofit Youth Villages is partnering with the Massachusetts Health and Human Services Department for a program called Intercept, to provide immediate in-home mental-health treatment for kids and teens.

Matt Stone, executive director of Youth Villages, hopes to see similar programs in other communities.

"The vast majority of the children and adolescents that we are serving in this program," Stone explained. "They don't need a bed in a facility. What they need is intensive in-home support, to help the parents and caregivers be able to manage the crisis."

Stone noted Youth Villages has served more than 100 families, referred by 20 different hospitals. Family intervention specialists meet with families two to three times a week; help address issues with schools, courts and children's services; and build and help families execute treatment plans. They're also on call 24/7 in case of an emergency.

Joy Rosen, vice president for systems behavioral and mental health at Mass General Brigham, said during the pandemic, hospitals have seen increased numbers of children and teens in mental distress. She pointed out there are a number of factors, from remote learning and feeling isolated, to potential loss of a friend or family member.

"Anyone is accepted, regardless of their insurance, whether they're documented or undocumented," Rosen stressed. "It's really a breath of fresh air, and particularly at a time when clinicians did not feel they had many resources at their fingertips for these suffering kids and families."

Angela is a parent of a teenager who went through the Intercept program. She emphasized the difference it makes to be able to take care of your kid at home. She recounted when her daughter was experiencing an eating disorder and self-harm, she was stuck in the emergency room for two full weeks because inpatient facilities wouldn't take her, until she was discharged with Youth Villages.

"Awareness of this program really needs to be heightened up a bit to help get kids home. An emergency room is not a place for mental illness with kids," Angela asserted. "She saw way too many things as a teenager that she should not have seen in that emergency room."

Virginia is home to more than 780,000 military veterans, and one organization is offering mental and emotional support.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness' (NAMI) Homefront program is a free, six-class course for veterans, active-duty military members and their families.

Mary Beth Walsh, director of programs for NAMI-Virginia, said military families often have their own unique mental and emotional needs, which the program aims to address.

"It's an educational course that helps lead family members through ways that they can not only help their loved ones, but also ways that they can focus on themselves and gain support for their own needs," Walsh explained.

In addition to NAMI's program, the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA) also offers care via its mental-health specialty clinics, primary-care clinics, nursing homes and residential-care facilities. Walsh pointed out NAMI also partners with VA facilities to offer peer-to-peer support programs, which emphasize connecting veterans with folks who have shared experiences.

Walsh noted the peer-to-peer support model is used across NAMI's other mental-health programs, but is particularly important for veterans. As she explained, military veterans have a unique culture, language and experiences.

"Being able to talk to somebody who has been there and can really say, 'I've been through what you're going through,' it's such a huge aspect of what can really help somebody feel not so isolated and alone," Walsh emphasized.

Dr. Rhonda Randall, executive vice president and chief medical officer for UnitedHealthcare employer and individual, said there are a few signs people should keep an eye out for if they think someone is struggling with their mental health.

"Things that you really worry about are like loss of interest in things, a loss of feeling happiness or pleasure, really feeling helpless or hopeless," Randall advised. "Generally, we get concerned when those kinds of feelings persist for more than two weeks."

According to the federal government, more than 1.7 million veterans received mental-health counseling through a VA program in the 2018 fiscal year. The department also has a veterans' crisis phone line for emergency situations.