KELLOGG – Bridging the gap for mental health resources and needs in Shoshone County has been an important part of the Silver Valley Economic Development Corporation’s local undertakings, inspiring Silver Valley CARES and Project Uplift to work with Heritage Health to find a way to fund student mental health resources.

Free weekly group counseling sessions began in December at Kellogg Middle School as one of these new resources. Because middle school is a time of major transitions, funding from the Idaho Community Foundation made the new program possible, said SVEDC executive director Paige Olsen.

“The nice thing about it being encompassed under economic development is that happy, healthy, thriving people are going to be people who have jobs, so it all kind of ties together,” Olsen said.

Heritage Health was involved in the brainstorming sessions for how funds could integrate mental health supports and education. The most apt solution was deemed to be group counseling sessions for middle school students. The group sessions would keep things simpler from a billing perspective while still serving more kids than individual counseling sessions.

Kellogg Middle School students are now able to opt in during their free period to build up their self-worth and work on eliminating inner monologues like, “I am not good enough,” or “I am not smart enough."

“Getting to those kiddos at that vulnerable age in junior high is where we’re starting. The whole premise behind Silver Valley CARES is we’re trying to break that stigma around that and let people know it’s ok to not be ok, and it’s ok to talk about it. This is a way we can start doing that, by getting into the schools and having these things available for people who might not be able to go to an office,” Olsen said.

Therapist Carrie Leeling has been leading the group sessions for sixth through eighth-graders in Kellogg, and said that she uses ice breakers with the students to ease them into sessions along with discussions considering how the curriculum could be applied to their own lives. 

“Group counseling can also be more validating and effective for some people because they are given the opportunity to hear perspectives from other members and feel validated from their peers,” Leeling said.

With parental consent, students can attend the weekly sessions. The group therapy uses the “Making Sense of Your Worth” curriculum created by the HALO Project. 

“Groups are often difficult to facilitate due to the documentation demands and some insurances do not cover groups, limiting who can participate, but utilizing funding from a grant removes these barriers,” Leeling said.

Kellogg Middle School is currently the only school receiving individual and group therapy due to the shortage of providers in the area, but Leeling is hopeful that more services can be added if the provider base expands to better parallel the population size. 

Though this new group is an outlier, the agencies involved are hopeful that it’s just the start of group therapy as a resource being offered to other Silver Valley students.

“I’m hoping that if this is a success, we can integrate it into more of the school districts next year,” Olsen said.