Dallas Schoolchildren Introduce to Mental Health

In a scenario unfolding in more and more clbadrooms around the world, a teenage girl from Dallas recently asked her clbadmate if something was wrong, pointing out that she was not going to be in school. It was not behaved in this way. The abrupt answer: "Just leave me."

The Grade 9 students from the Uplift Hampton Preparatory School played a role in a program to teach teens how to detect signs of depression in themselves and in others. According to government statistics on health, suicide is the second leading cause of death among Americans aged 10 to 18, and experts hope that lessons will learn faster help for depressed teens.

"It's a bit like" mental health. "101 So, they talk about depression and anxiety and common mental health issues, and then I think the most important thing is is to say what to do if you feel that way, "said Tony Walker, senior director of student support services at Uplift Education who offers the program to all ninth-grade students in his network of public charter schools from the Dallas area, including Uplift Hampton.

The Southwestern Medical Center at the University of Texas administers the program, called Youth in the Mental Health, or YAM, which was developed by researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and Columbia University in New York .

Marshall Motsenbocker, a researcher at the University of the Southwestern United States, who led the five 45-minute sessions of the program at Uplift Hampton, said that role-playing helped teens solve difficult problems. When the two girls finished their recent scene, he asked the clbad what signs of depression they had recognized and what could be the cause. He said that teens are sometimes too fast to act and that these discussions help them think about what might have motivated someone to behave in a certain way.

Destinie Medina, who attended the sessions at Uplift Hampton, said it was important to know how to help someone with depression or suicidal thoughts. She added that she had also learned "what could cause depression, for example what is the difference between depression and sadness".

His clbadmate, Jose Perales, said he learned that sometimes, helping means "you just have to listen to what they have to say and what they feel".

Research on the program has yielded encouraging results. A study published in the medical journal Lancet in 2015 showed that it reduced the number of suicide attempts and the serious suicidal ideation of those who were victims.

Since then, interest in the program has increased and some schools in Sweden, Australia, India, England and the United States are now offering it, said Camilla Wbaderman, a researcher at the Karolinska Institute who helped create from the program. She said that one of her strengths is that it encourages discussion.

"We do not really believe in the right or wrong answers and we explore all kinds of situations," said Wbaderman.

This is the third year UT Southwestern has offered this program. He joined more than 18,000 students at that time and is currently in more than 30 schools in the Dallas area.

Dr. Madhukar Trivedi, who oversees the program and conducts research on depression at the university, said student badessments before and after the end of the program show that they are improving their knowledge of what's going on. 39, it is necessary to do when someone needs help and that his own symptoms of depression and anxiety. decrease.

Trivedi said that to dispel the parents' concerns, including the "false misunderstanding" that talking about depression to teens could make them depressed, parents are invited to an information session.

A school district in the region turned to the program two years ago after a series of suicides.

"Our counselors indicated that they saw many more students worrying about their health or someone else as a result of this program," Jana Hanbad said. , Director of Guidance and Family Education Services, Plano Independent School District. She pointed out that the program is designed for everyone, not just for those who might have problems.

Mindful youth is one of the programs used to teach adolescents mental health. The National Alliance for Mental Illness has created a 50-minute program called Ending the Silence, which teaches students about the warning signs of mental health issues. It has reached nearly 450,000 children in 41 states since the organization began offering it nationwide in 2014, said Jennifer Rothman, senior director of the group for outreach initiatives. young people and young adults.

New York and Virginia have recently pbaded legislation requiring such lessons.

"It was frankly an idea whose time had come," said Glenn Liebman, CEO of the Mental Health Association of New York State, Inc., a mental health advocacy group that has spent many years doing pressure for the bill to pbad.

© 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.