Hotline Numbers Race
In embracing the notion that you need to meet your audience where it is, Ridgeview High School in Redmond, Oregon met its students on their smart phones. In this activity, the facilitator challenged students to find three hotline numbers on their smart phones. The goal is for the students to see how quick and easy it is to find resources, as well as get them to keep the hotline numbers on their phones in case they need them for themselves or friends. They also distribute worksheets on which the students to fill out the numbers.
Make Suicide Prevention Year-Round
It’s important to remember that suicide prevention and mental health education is not just a one-day activity. Rather it is something schools can engage in year-round. Schools do this in many different ways. Some schools distribute depression screenings at the same time they do annual vision screenings. (Remember that mental health screenings — like vision screenings — are not diagnostic. Instead they can determine if a student has symptoms consistent with depression and suicidality and needs to be referred for a professional evaluation.)
Some schools make the depression screenings available at guidance offices so that students stopping in for anything, including college advice, can also take a screening. Still others share information about online screenings with parents during parent nights or in routine school communications such as newsletters. Parents can go online and take a brief screen for adolescent depression (BSAD) on behalf of their child. With a subscription to the online parent BSAD, available from Screening for Mental Health, parents can take a screening about their child at anytime throughout the course of the year.
EYES Program
The CHADS Coalition (communities healing adolescent depression and suicide), based in St. Louis, uses its EYES program after students complete the SOS program. EYES stands for “every year, every student,” and it focuses on three key areas for middle school students: bullying for 6th graders, peer pressure for 7th graders, and self injury for 8th graders. Facilitators tell the story of a young boy named Chad who died by suicide, review the ACT acronym, have the kids self-screen for depression, and do surveys on what they have learned. They also do creative, interactive activities to bring home information about bullying and peer pressure. In the bullying lesson, students all stand up in a circle and the facilitator asks the students to cross the line if they’ve ever been bullied, then if they’ve ever witnessed bullying, then if they know someone who fears internet bullying, etc. Pretty soon, the students learn that they all have a role to play in preventing bullying.
The program then runs a peer pressure role-play activity in which the kids act out different scenarios such as someone offering them alcohol or shoplifting. The students have the opportunity to create their own stories, and this helps everyone understand and retain the lesson.
Every school’s culture is different, so what works for one school may not work for another. Think about your school’s unique needs and the SOS program can work with you on the best curriculum.