GILBERT, AZ — Mental health is a crisis teenagers continue to battle.
In the Chandler Unified School District, students are going through a new pilot project, aimed to educate teens on how to help their peers during a mental health crisis.
CUSD has created more programs over the years to give students easier access to mental health programs.
Just last year, the district experienced the loss of students to suicide.
“Suicide is a national issue it is not just specific to the Chandler School District,” said Lindsay Taylor, a school social worker with the district.
Getting kids to talk to adults about their mental health struggles may be difficult.
William Lucas, a junior at Perry High School, feels it is easier to talk to a friend rather than a parent or adult.
“Because maybe, we feel like they’re more relatable and they understand more,” said Lucas.
Knowing that CUSD partnered with Christina Jones, a Chandler Regional ER nurse and ASU doctoral nurse practitioner student in psychiatric medicine. Jones helped bring the “Teen Mental Health First Aid” program to the district earlier this school year.
“It’s like CPR but for mental health for kids 15 to 18 years old,” said Jones.
The pilot project was done with 800 students at Perry High School in smaller sessions. Students learned how to spot the signs of mental health struggles in their friends, learn how to talk to them about it, and know when they need to talk to an adult.
“I think the more kids that are trained in this kind of thing and know how to support their peers and know how to get help for themselves. I think that's what's ultimately going to save lives,” said Taylor.
The discussions can be difficult, but needed they say, to break the stigma of asking for or giving help.
“We say that out loud, the question you might have to ask a friend at some point in time: 'Do you have thoughts of wanting to kill yourself?' And we say that out loud as a group. Not turn to each other and say it, but say it out loud and it reduces the stigma of just saying that sentence and that is so powerful,” said Jones.
The school finished the last of three 90-minute sessions on Wednesday. Both Jones and Taylor tell ABC15 the program is successful, receiving positive feedback from the students.
Jones also did a smaller pilot project with a few other students earlier in the school year, where she said the results were positive, too. She said students felt they saw an increase in mental health literacy, an increase in help-seeking skills and said they were more likely to ask for help. They also felt it decreased the stigma of asking for help.
The program is not all just about mental health needs; it’s also about discussing substance abuse and how to approach their friends or adults about that.
“I think it goes one step further than a lot of the other suicide prevention curriculums out there,” said Taylor.
CUSD hopes to bring it to more high schools next year and spread it even further to make sure kids can help their friends in their times of crisis.
“I feel like this partially opens that up because it allows those teenagers to come together and realize, here we all are, sitting here, and we all care. We have adults on campus and it's showing that they care,” said William.
