Mental health has been the forefront of Ronda Stevens’ work at Kalispell Public Schools as the project director of Montana Support, Outreach and Access for the Resiliency of Students. 

Montana SOARS-Kalispell (formerly known as Project AWARE) is funded by a five-year grant administered through the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Although under a new name in its second year, the program’s goal remains the same — create a sustainable system to identify and support youths with emotional, behavioral or mental needs and improve school culture.

“The grant came out of the tragic results of Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut,” Stevens said. “The biggest reason for this grant is trying to connect the community and the school when there is a mental issue of some sort. When the student’s mental illness is compromised there needs to be connection.”

Mental health issues can affect youths at young ages and symptoms are not always recognized. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, “The average delay between onset of symptoms and intervention is 8-10 years. Only 50 percent of youth with mental illness receive treatment.”

Combining this with the fact that Montana ranks among the top five states with the highest rate of suicides means addressing mental health needs to be a top priority Stevens said.

According to the latest Montana Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 18.8 percent of high school respondents “seriously considered attempting suicide” in the past 12 months with 5 percent reporting they attempted suicide at least once. According to the same survey, 29.3 percent felt “so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row” that they stopped their usual activities over the past 12 months.

Montana was one of 20 states to receive grant funding in 2014. Kalispell, Butte and Browning share the grant money.

“I asked the question when I first became involved, ‘What made Kalispell attractive to receive the grant?’ Of course there was a lot of grant writing that went into it, but it was recognized early on that Kalispell has a tremendous amount of mental health help out there, whether it be an agency or the hospital. What was seen early on is the [issue of] accessibility,” Stevens said. “Students and parents don’t know how to access this help.”

Achieving the goals of Montana SOARS-Kalispell is the task of a 15-person committee made up of representatives from the school district and community agencies that work with youth and mental health.

One of the first things Kalispell Public Schools did with the grant money was hire four social workers to work with families. The first year also was spent collecting data, setting baselines and fulfilling grant requirements at the state level.

Now work can really begin at the local level, said Stevens, who is in Helena this week working on a plan for Kalispell.

A community-wide referral system is something Stevens hopes to unroll as part of the plan in 2016. Currently, agencies and organizations are working in “silos.”

“You’ve got the school district, you’ve got the agencies, you’ve got the hospital, you’ve got law enforcement, juvenile detention — and all of us are working in pockets. We’ve all got information that would help a student if we were all connected, so that truly is a goal because it’s a community issue,” Stevens said.

Data that Stevens collected between Sept. 30, 2014, and March 30, 2015, showed 665 children received mental health services from The Newman Center, Turtle Bay, Pathways and Stillwater Therapeutic Center.

Based on this snapshot, Stevens said it makes sense to have a referral system in place between agencies to ensure children receive the help they need.

Among ongoing components of the grant are the Montana Behavioral Initiative (teaching positive behaviors and expectations to students) and Youth Mental Health First Aid training. The former is practiced in many Flathead Valley school districts and the latter is a work in progress.

“We’re held to training 125 people a year. We’ve only trained about 50 to date,” Stevens said. “It is for the community and school district, not just teachers.”

The Youth Mental Health First Aid training is a vital component to recognizing the symptoms of mental health issues, what kinds of questions to ask, how to approach a student, how to listen and provide support.

“This is really about identification and intervention is a great word to use because that’s what we’re trying to establish are interventions for students that have mental health issues,” Stevens said. “Anxiety, trauma, depression — and of course the high rate of suicide numbers in Montana — are all the reasons why we’re doing this.”

The next Mental Health First Aid training sessions will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Nov. 14 and Dec. 3 also at Sykes. To register, visit www.eventbrite.com and search “Youth Mental Health First Aid” in Kalispell.

For more information call Stevens at 751-3643 or email stevensr@sd5.k12.mt.us.

Hilary Matheson is a reporter for The Daily Inter Lake. She may be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.