N. California region creates a four-pronged approach to address teen mental illness

From Palo Alto Online in California:

A roomful of self-described Type-A personalities met at Palo Alto City Hall on Sept. 3 to develop a comprehensive program to address teen mental illness.

The task force of city, county, school and mental health professionals was spurred to action by three recent teen suicides in Palo Alto and vowed to seek a thoughtful approach to the recent crisis.

"There was a general consensus not to go jumping into specific solutions and actions" at the beginning, Steve Emslie, deputy city manager, said by phone Thursday night. "We tend to be a Type-A group and want to jump to a quick solution. We want to be methodical."

City Manager James Keene said the city is committed to providing a platform for the group to develop strategies to prevent teen suicides and target the broader issues of mental health in the community.

"We are focusing on the map of the community of providers to see what programs and strategies are out there. We are not interested in reinventing the wheel.

"The group identified some successful models and some groups talked about things that have been effective in other places in the world," Keene said.

Emslie said the group wants to give nonprofit and service providers time to present in-depth reports about what they are doing, he said.

Representatives of the PTA, Palo Alto Unified School District, Palo Alto Police Department, Palo Alto Human Relations Commission, Adolescent Counseling Services, former Palo Alto Mayor Vic Ojakian, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and Palo Alto Medical Foundation attended the meeting; City Manager James Keene chaired it, Emslie said.

The first gathering was a "time for people to get to know each other," and they agreed to a follow-up meeting approximately four weeks from now. The next meeting will be more structured toward specific actions, he said.

Keene said he is particularly impressed with the school district's ideas.

Palo Alto Unified School District Superintendent Kevin Skelly, a group member, told the Weekly that one focus is to change the community image of mental illness.

In a letter sent to parents on Wednesday, Skelly outlined some of the school district's approaches:

"We believe our work centers on three areas: (1) educating students on mental health issues and how to identify mental illness; (2) identifying students with mental health issues and working with their families to connect with school/community resources; and (3) removing the stigma associated with mental depression and illness through educating students, parents, and staff," he wrote.

On Sept. 25, district psychologists, counselors, and behaviorists will train school-district staff on how to identify mental health issues among students. That training will continue during the year, he said Thursday.

The district will also look for ways to add mental health education to the school curriculum, including ways to help students feel more comfortable sharing their concerns with staff and alerting school officials if they have friends in need, he said.

Some of the biggest challenges are at the secondary-school level, where students have many different teachers and incoming students don't have relationships with teachers and counselors, he said.

Teachers don't have benchmarks on which to base behavioral change, such as if a straight-A student suddenly starts getting Bs, or other indicators. The district will work to establish ways to identify those changes, he added.

The district's student services program will provide contacts for mental health programs in cases of more severe mental health issues, he said.

Virtually every conversation on mental health comes back to social attitudes associated with mental illness, Skelly wrote to parents.

"Parents and guardians of students with mental health issues need to feel just as comfortable informing us of their student's condition as do parents of students with any other medical need. We need to make sure that these issues are handled sensitively. Schools are changing the culture around tolerance and other social issues. We can do considerable work on the stigmas associated with mental health as well," he said.

"You can help by being more alert to the needs of your own child, and to your child's friends, by attending upcoming community meetings and facilitating and supporting dialogues among all groups within the community," he wrote.