If there’s a solution to the youth mental health crisis, kids are likely to be the ones to find it.
That philosophy is the guiding principle behind the Youth Wellness Initiative (YWI), hosted by the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation (GTRCF), which has convened a team of teenagers to research youth mental health in northern Michigan. While these students work under the guidance of adults, they are ultimately the ones leading the YWI project, which has a mission no less ambitious than to make Northern Michigan a safer and healthier place to grow up.
Both locally and nationally, youth mental health is in the spotlight. An ARPA-funded regional mental health centre is on its way to Grand Traverse County, Munson Healthcare has been awarded $5 million in state funds to “expand pediatric behavioural health” in northern Michigan, and Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) will soon open a student health clinic with a strong behavioural health component. And on a national level, news broke this week that dozens of attorneys general from across the United States – including Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel – are suing Facebook parent company Meta for its role in the youth mental health crisis.
Dave Mengebier, president and CEO of GTRCF, sees the YWI project as an important piece of the puzzle. Funded by a $100,000 grant from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, the initiative brought together 14 high school students from GTRCF’s five-county service area and paired them with two experts: Dr Ashley Drake, a former lecturer and researcher at the University of Chicago, and Woody Smith, founder and president of local market research and strategy firm Avenue ISR. Drake and Smith worked with the students to develop an anonymous survey of their peers, asking questions about mental health challenges and supports.
“The idea was, instead of adults asking students what they think, why don’t we have students ask their peers what’s causing them a lot of stress?” Mengebier explains. The expectation, he says, was that students would be more open about their mental health experiences if their peers were the ones asking the questions.
The strategy worked: 530 students from 20 different high schools responded, and this wealth of data allowed the YWI team to move on to the next phase of their project.
“Once we had the data, the students analysed it and came up with 11 recommendations that schools, parents or other organisations serving youth and families can consider as they work to address the youth mental health crisis,” says Mengebier.
The data revealed some key findings. In addition to confirming that many high school students in the area “are experiencing significant mental wellness challenges…including anxiety and depression,” the survey found that many students still perceive a stigma around mental health issues and “do not have anyone they would feel comfortable talking to if they were feeling sad, anxious, or hopeless.” The survey also found that many students don’t know what mental health resources are available to them, either in their schools or in the community.
Based on these findings, the YWI team has made 11 recommendations in three main categories.
First, the group encourages an increased focus on mental health education in local school districts, with therapists and counsellors talking to students about “specific emotional regulation and organisation techniques” as early as primary school.
The second category, “facilitating interactions”, recommends that schools work to facilitate one-on-one connections and discussions about mental health – both between students and counsellors, and between students and their peers.
Finally, the third category – “using safe spaces and nature to reduce stress” – advocates that schools provide environments and situations that can help students to “decompress”, whether that means providing “chill-out rooms” within school buildings or putting more emphasis on things like field trips and outdoor learning opportunities.
When asked whether she thinks schools or other organisations will take the recommendations to heart, Ellen Grams – one of the 14 students involved – says she’s optimistic. In fact, Grams, a senior at Traverse City Central High School, tells The Ticker that she’s already seeing significant positive momentum around youth mental health within TCAPS.
“I’ve definitely seen a lot of change since my freshman year,” Grams says, pointing in particular to Trojans Unite, a student-led mental health group that started at Central last year. “The group started through Michigan’s Peer-to-Peer Depression Awareness Program, which trains schools across the state. I’m the co-president of Trojans Unite, and we have an Instagram account that’s constantly putting out a lot of positive mental health information, from awareness of symptoms to resources that students can access.”
Beyond Trojans Unite, Grams says Central has taken steps to make counsellors “a lot more accessible than they were my freshman year,” and has even added a “sanctuary room,” an oasis of beanbag chairs and relaxed energy that provides “a place for kids to calm down.”
“I think it’s just become apparent that more kids are struggling,” says Grams. “And because of that, the administration has been more understanding and accommodating of kids’ mental health needs.”
Now the students involved in YWI are working on the next phase: a partnership with Interlochen Public Radio, where they’ll record, publish and broadcast a series of podcasts based on what they’ve learned. According to Grams, YWI used the survey results to develop “four big questions” about youth mental health. The team will now produce four podcast episodes, each exploring a different one of these key questions.
“They’re questions like, ‘Why do students feel uncomfortable seeking help from counsellors?'” Grams says. “And then we’re going to interview a whole range of people in the community who have experience in this area and can speak to some of these issues. So that could be professional psychiatrists, therapists, counsellors, even students. And then we’ll prepare the interviews, conduct the interviews, and put all that information together into a final podcast episode.
