This story was originally published by Montana Free Press at montanafreepress.org.
This story contains discussions about suicide, anxiety and depression. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, the 988 hotline is available 24/7 by phone, text message, online chat or video phone.
In 2023, Andrea Savage warned Great Falls Public Schools officials of high rates of depression and anxiety among students, especially sixth graders.
Savage, who is the school district’s mental health coordinator, said that 18 sixth-grade students went to the emergency room for suicidal ideations. And across grade levels, students weren’t always sure where to turn for support.
“A lot of our population didn’t even know that we had mental health therapists in the buildings,” Savage told Montana Free Press recently. “They weren’t sure how to access that. They weren’t sure about the roles of school counselors.”
Across Montana, survey data in 2023 showed that nearly a third of students reported serious stress, anxiety and depression. Students reported feelings of hopelessness at higher rates in the years following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
At Great Falls schools, Savage turned to a growing number of high school student peer mentors who had been trained to talk about suicide, depression and anxiety and to share tools that might help students cope. They boosted visits with sixth graders, and with the help of more mental health screenings, she saw an impact.
“We’ve had a 95 percent decrease in the amount of sixth graders that are presenting to the ER,” Savage said.
Mental health is still a major concern among school students, with both national and state-level reports indicating that the rise in mental health challenges that ramped up since 2020 isn’t yet coming down. The peer mentor program in Great Falls begins by tackling one of the most basic hurdles: getting students to talk about tough, personal topics.
“It was interesting because these kids want to talk about it,” Savage said. “They know that the more they talk about how it’s OK to be sad, it’s OK to be anxious, they normalize it and they are really changing the culture.”
The program started in 2021 with seven students as an extra-curricular group to talk about ways to deal with issues they faced. The idea was that students are more likely to speak openly with another teenager who experiences many of the same pressures. Today, 200 students participate with peer mentor projects at the three public high schools and groups at the two middle schools.
The United Way of Cascade County, the Alliance for Youth and Touro College are partners in the project, Savage said.
At Great Falls High School, the project has grown into an elective course pilot program that is ongoing this spring with 30 students. Savage said the students learn evidence-based mental health care practices that they can use to identify students in need of help and to share information and resources.
As a foundation, the peer mentors are also trained in self-care.
“We talk a lot about self-compassion, and so we expect these kids to be able to take care of themselves mentally as much as we ask them to go out and provide mental support to their peers,” Savage said.
A team of licensed therapists facilitates both the larger peer mentor projects and the pilot class at Great Falls High. During the transition back to in-person learning, the district used pandemic relief funds to hire mental health professionals.
Today, six therapists work across 21 school buildings in Great Falls. Jackie Mainwaring, a district executive director for student achievement, said those therapists have full caseloads.
“They see individual students for therapy,” she said. “They also do some groups, and they support with assessments and things like that when there are concerns for student safety.”
Mainwaring said the district is proud of the mental health peer mentoring program, in part because its reach is districtwide. Peer mentors from the high school visit students from sixth grade on up, prepared with quick de-stressing techniques and trained to help identify resources for those who really need them. The students have led mental health events and created topical videos that are shared on social media. Each year, Great Falls High has a mental health week that brings the work of the peer mentors front and center.
In January, a group of peer mentor students gave a presentation about QPR (question, persuade, refer) suicide prevention practices to a group of Touro College medical students. And on February 17, peer mentor students testified at the Montana Legislature before the House Education Committee in support of House Bill 385, which would provide startup grants for mental health pilot programs across the state.
Madeline Hart, a junior at Great Falls High, told the committee that she joined the peer mentor program after losing a classmate to suicide in eighth grade.
“This was an incredibly challenging time in my life, and this group was an incredible support system for me as I joined high school,” she said.
She added that she has used the QPR suicide prevention training twice this year.
The bill is sponsored by Representative Melissa Romano (D-Helena), who told the committee that she brought the legislation after working with Helena-area high school students on mental health projects.
“Our students continue to face an undeniable mental health crisis,” Romano told the committee. “Anxiety, depression, bullying and stress are affecting their ability to learn, thrive and succeed in school.”
Savage said that as the school district culture has become more open about recognizing mental health challenges, there have been opportunities for difficult discussions. Lately, social media and sextortion are topics that some students might be more comfortable bringing up with a peer mentor, she said. In years past, those might have been too taboo to talk about.
“One of the pieces that really stood out for me was that these kids are leaders,” Savage said.
As a pilot program, the peer mentor class will be reviewed in the spring to determine whether it needs tweaking and can be expanded. Savage said they hope to bring the class to CMR for the fall semester.
It doesn’t seem like Savage will have trouble attracting participants. Two years after showing troubling trends, sixth-grade students are now asking to join the peer mentor program.
“We have sixth graders who will reach out to our mentors asking, ‘How do we get involved?’” Savage said. “So that’s been cool, too.”
