PhebeCox grew up in what might seem an unlikely mental health danger zone for a -组卷网

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Phebe Cox grew up in what might seem an unlikely mental health danger zone for a kid: tony Palo Alto, California. But behind its surface of family success and wealth, she said, is an environment of heavy pressure on students to perform. By 2016, when Cox was in middle school, Palo Alto had a teen suicide (自杀) rate four times the national average.

Cox’s family lived by the railroad tracks where many of the suicides occurred. She got counseling (咨询). But that choice is not always easily available to teens in crisis — and she and her peers regarded school mental health services as their last choice because of concerns about privacy.

A new program provides an alternative. Called Allcove, it offers unattached health and wellness sites to those ages 12 to 25. Although Allcove is built to support a wide range of physical, emotional and social needs, its main goal is to deal with mental health challenges before they develop into deeper problems. Cox said, “I felt pretty helpless as a young teenager, but Allcove is all about the students and the students’ needs.”

About half of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14 and 75% before age 25, according to researchers. Yet access to mental health care in the U.S. is lacking. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, some 30 million adults and children with mental health conditions go without treatment, and 129 million people live in areas with shortages of mental health professionals.

Allcove provides fully staffed safe spaces for teens and young adults to discuss and deal with their health, both mental and physical. Dr. Steven Adelsheim, a psychiatrist, who created the Allcove in 2014, said, “There is a crying need in the U.S. to reach kids with early intervention and help.” Sometimes a kid may come in with a physical complaint, and only after a few visits is the mental suffering brought out into the open. When that happens, Alcove can make a “warm handoff” to a mental health specialist onsite. Success, say Adelsheim and Cox, would mean the establishment of hundreds of Allcove centers up and down the state and, eventually, around the country.

【小题1】Why did Cox and her peers regard school mental health services as their last choice?

A．They were indifferent to the program.

B．They were concerned about their health.

C．They were upset about the occurrence of the suicides.

D．They were worried about their personal information leak.

【小题2】How does the author prove the lack of mental health care in the US?