Our Moral Crisis

In a recent article published in Seven Days Vermont, journalist Joe Sexton did a remarkable job telling the story of Grace Welch and the state’s former juvenile rehabilitation center, Woodside (The Loss of Grace, October 25-November 1, 2023). You will read this gut-wrenching piece about recent abuses at the hands of people many of us in this small state are familiar with and probably rush to wonder what we should do to stop any form of mistreatment from happening again. 

We may blame past leaders, inept officials, and cumbersome regulatory processes. We can spend months or years improving educational pathways and workforce and housing shortages. We can mine for funding to support sound implementation of data collection and monitoring tools (which are the cornerstone to coordination between departments and agencies), or simply decry a lack of transparency and oversight.

Knowing the chain of command doesn’t end with a departmental Commissioner, we could point to the lack of innovation in Governor Scott’s administration or antiquated rules at the Agency of Human Services, where the Department for Children and Family Services resides. We could flag the governor’s resistance to invest in, modernize, and integrate our mental health and substance use treatment systems, which first cost us more money, then quality of life, and then actual human life. 

We can do all of these things and more. But what I deeply hope we will do is contemplate what kind of crisis this truly is. Before we try to regulate and manage our way out of a health and human services system that is neglecting us and abusing our youth, we need to go behind policy and programs to a much more personal place. 

Our mental health and psychosocial problems increased following the Covid pandemic. Access to appropriate and timely care did not. Mental health care providers, it turns out, are people, too, and many of them understandably left their jobs for more money and better working conditions. 

Three years after the start of the pandemic, 90% of Americans believe we are facing a mental health crisis (Kaiser Family Foundation Survey, 2023). When our mental health challenges rise, the health and wellbeing of all Vermonters of every age is at greater risk. Our mental wellbeing influences markers of physical health such as blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and heart disease, and can significantly impact the costs of healthcare for everyone.

Unaddressed mental health challenges even impact our economic health. Sick people can’t work, staff turnover rates rise, and local businesses suffer. When we are too sick to work, we focus on survival and become less supportive of the things that help address both our own and our community's economic and social problems. It’s easy to lose sight of where there is kindness and good in the world.

Maybe Vermont needs to move beyond the individual treatment approach that has placed us in a costly, crisis-response mode when symptoms are unbearable. We can get ahead of the curve by focusing now on local, community-led efforts that build resilience and enhance the values of connection, support, and service. We must address the issue before it’s an issue.

I recently saw Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy speak at Dartmouth Medical School on the future of mental health. He said something that guides me, and probably many others, as we go forward in healing ourselves from the loss of Grace and other hardships we are facing today. He suggested we are facing a moral crisis.

“[Many people say] ‘It feels like it's become more important to be right than to be compassionate, it's become somehow more important to be powerful than to be kind. To look good than to actually be good,’ And that sense has fueled this notion, belief almost, that people have taken on, that we are fundamentally just mean-spirited. That we are just looking out for ourselves and this is the way the world is and so we have to be that way if we want to survive in this kind of world.

But I actually don’t believe that is fundamentally who we are. I don’t think that we are primarily mean-spirited and unkind. I think that we are actually more grounded in the core values of kindness and generosity of service and friendship, I think that’s what we want. I think that’s the life we want our kids to lead.”

We must let this story of Woodside be a turning point for Vermont. The abuse Grace Welch suffered is not what we want for any child or person. Let’s never let it happen again by holding ourselves to much, much higher standards. We have to give more support to expanding community-led resilience so that every neighbor is included and has an active voice in supporting their neighbors to be strong, connected, and well.

Federal legislation was introduced this past May that will provide communities a chance to do that. Ask our congressional delegates to support the Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act (H.R.3073/S.1452) which will create funding for community resilience hubs to enhance local resilience to toxic stress and disasters. I will be introducing similar state legislation this January. We have to support local communities coming together to remind each other that it’s still more important to be kind, than it is to be powerful. Community is prevention.