A High School Mental Health Support Strategy That Actually Works
20% of youth ages 13–18 live with a mental health condition and it’s not just those with a mental health condition that need support, according to Psychology Today, “the average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950s.”
And it doesn’t get any better in college…in fall 2014, the American College Health Association assessment surveyed 1,010 college students and At MU, 61 percent of reported feeling overwhelming anxiety within the last year.And 35.5 percent said they “felt so depressed that it was difficult to function.”
Amber Lutz, a counselor at Kirkwood High School in St. Louis, says students are experiencing high performance expectations as the competition rises for sports, school, and future universities. Students show up to the nurse not for skinned knees or a spare tampon, but for panic attacks.
Sometimes the traditional mediums of talk therapy or face-to-face counselors just are not enough. Young people’s habits are changing and are spending more time online,plugged-in, and often disconnected. Whether it’s the stigma of mental health services, feeling they just don’t need the help, or something else, not all students are getting the help they need. And unfortunately suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for young people and destroys communities.
We need a 21st century tool to this 21st century problem that can help a student develop kills and find intellectual, social, and emotional support in a healthy and safe environment.
Bring the most comprehensive mental health support tool to your school: Marbles (download here).
Marbles iOS & android apps gives students a healthy, anonymous, and 100% troll and stigma-free option to discuss mental and emotional health while connecting them with the area resources for additional professional support. Roughly 30% of our users are below the age of 19 and that user group is the most active users and posters on the app.
Posts like these…
“I don’t understand. a “friend” of mine got super mad because I told him not to be calling me “baby or “baby girl” because I don’t like it….he said I was being childish because I’m 17. He’s 18…What did I do wrong?”
“I honestly hate living….I’m only 17 and I’m graduating and going to college. WTF am I going to do? I’m dragging myself in high school…”
“My ‘best friends’ left me and started rumors, now I’m alone again wanting to kill myself…I never actually will but I just keep thinking…I don’t know what to do…”
…are frequently posted in the anonymous chat area called the Tips.
Marbles is free from social pressure, bullying, and judgement and creates a healthy environment to explore non-crisis challenges that are common to every student’s life such as relationship complications, trouble with identity, negative thoughts, what to do about suicidal ideation, and more.
Marbles is not supposed to be used as an alternative for ongoing professional health services or crisis intervention. Marbles has been developed to address acute and episodic stress and mental health events and utilizes the power of peer support to improve student health and well-being.
Students “Reflect” and fill out a short, 7 question poll about how they are doing on seven important components of mental and emotional health. This helps them build self-awareness about what decisions are really helping or hurting their overall well-being.
Administrators can then access this anonymous data and sort by demographic information such as year in school, age, gender, race, and sexual orientation to understand what populations are at the most risk for mental and emotional health troubles.
Administrators can access their campus’s Reflection results in real-time and use it to make more effective policy, outreaches, and programs to benefit students.
Save time, energy, and resources by getting the right students into therapy and effectively planning and deploying your student mental health engagement efforts powered by Marbles Analytics.
Join the 350+ organizations that are using Marbles and tell us, how can we help you improve students’ lives and academic performance?
Best of luck!
-Adam @thatmhg
p.s. We are launching a research study at the University of Minnesota to measure whether or not using Marbles improves self-reported depression and anxiety in undergraduates. If you are interested in research about Marbles or would like to get involved, please let us know!
download marbles for free from www.livebeyondthelabel.com
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