Gwen Moore: “Last week President Joe Biden delivered a strong State of the Union address focused on building a better America. Our…”

“Last week President Joe Biden delivered a strong State of the Union address focused on building a better America. Our jobs recovery is strong and well underway, as noted by the most recent numbers, which shows unprecedented job growth so far under this President. More than 7.3 million jobs have been created by President Biden's very first year in office, even with the challenges posed by omicron and delta COVID variants. But we have so much more to do in this never-ending process of building a more perfect Union. One area highlighted by the President was his desire to prioritize mental health needs in our country, particularly among our children. Our country faces an unprecedented mental health crisis in which our youth have been particularly impacted. A number of mental health organizations have declared a youth mental health crisis and our surgeon general has issued an advisory calling it ``an urgent public health crisis.'' Today, I rise as we celebrate School Social Work Week, to talk about one way to help address that issue by supporting and investing in school social workers. First, I just want to take an opportunity to thank our school social workers who work every single day to make a difference in the lives of their students and their families. School social workers are responsible for fostering students' social and emotional well-being so that they are ready to learn.…”