Wisconsin Mother Who Lost Her Daughter to Suicide Urges Lawmakers to Support Mental Health Bills

Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 -- 11:00 AM

(Corrinne Hess, Wisconsin Public Radio) A Wisconsin mother who lost her daughter to suicide is urging lawmakers to make it easier to get mental health treatment for older teens.

According to Corrinne Hess with the Wisconsin Public Radio, a bill she believes would do that is one of more than a dozen pending bills focused on expanding mental health access across the state.

Julie Elfers of Cottage Grove told legislators her story when the Assembly Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse Prevention held public hearings on five mental health care bills last week.

Those bills largely center on youth mental health, including the consent of minors who are 14 years or older for mental health treatment, safety plans for children and emergency detention plans for youth.

Last spring, Elfers’ 17-year-old daughter, Brooke, asked to see a doctor to start antidepressants. That is when Elfers learned Brooke had attempted suicide. Brooke’s doctor sent the family to the emergency room.

“She truly wanted to feel better, but what happened at the ER completely changed that,” Elfers said. “She waited for hours, she had no privacy and honestly, it felt like no one there cared.”

The resident physician told the family Brooke would be OK, because they were “good parents,” Elfers said. Elfers and her husband wanted Brooke to be committed.

But under current law, if a minor is age 14 or older, both the minor’s and the parent’s mutual consent are required for outpatient or inpatient mental health treatment. Brooke refused treatment and was discharged with a safety plan.

“We followed that plan and we made the calls,” Elfers said. “We got on the waiting list and we did everything we were told to do. It wasn’t enough.” Just one month after Brooke’s emergency room visit, she died by suicide.

Elfers is supporting a bill that revises that consent to allow either the minor or the parent to consent to outpatient or inpatient mental health treatment. “Our current laws made it impossible for us to get her the help we needed,” Elfers said. “We were her parents, we saw the signs and we begged. But we were powerless.”

That consent bill is just one of many proposals from lawmakers this spring focused on mental health issues. The majority of the legislation focuses on youth, who continue to face significant mental health challenges including high rates of depression, anxiety and self-harm, according to surveys.

The wide-ranging proposals include requiring health insurance companies to cover mental health visits, increasing funding to school districts for mental health services, and providing grants to racial minority groups to become school social workers.

But many of the bills are likely to face an uphill battle. Previous efforts to regulate the insurance industry have failed. And federal political efforts to dismantle or significantly alter diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are underway.

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