The Malheur ESD's Student Wellness Team works to educate students, teachers and administrators about mental health.
Dedicated ESD team strives to empower students to change narrative on youth mental health
VALE – The Malheur Education Service District team charged with saving lives works in a non-descript room down a long hall an outfielder’s throw from the main entrance in Vale.
No grand signage marks the room where six ESD employees – members of the Student Wellness Team - strive to educate teachers, administrators and students throughout Malheur County about suicide prevention.
The goal of the team is to keep students alive and tutor and train those who work with youth every day.
“I like that I can help people get trained so they can recognize students who are struggling,” said team member Kevin Purnell.
Purnell is a school safety and prevention specialist who works with four other individuals including Jenn Goldthorpe, Dannette Hackman, Kirsten Ried and Miraiha Mendoza. The team is led by Susuki, the Malheur Education Service District’s Student Wellness coordinator. Goldthorpe, Hackman, Ried and Mendoza are school counselors. Goldthorpe focuses on Adrian and Vale School Districts while Hackman works with Harper, Juntura and Annex schools. Mendoza supports the Nyssa School District and Ried is the counselor for Huntington and Jordan Valley.
The mission of the team is to enhance student wellness. Student wellness is a term that encapsulates an array of subjects, including suicide prevention, behavioral safety assessments, bullying, cyber-bullying and cyber awareness. Yet each of those subjects, as varied as they appear, can all tie into suicide prevention.
The group also collaborates with local police and various other agencies such as Lifeways, the Malheur County Juvenile Department and the Oregon Department of Health Services to educate students and staff regarding suicide prevention.
Purnell – who worked as an educator and administrator for more than 30 years – said young students today face a bewildering assortment of challenges.
“Quite frankly, it is a tougher world out there now. There is so much coming at them, social media, cell phones,” he said.
Purnell said a variety of factors can play a role suicide ideation.
“I don’t know if you can narrow it down to just a few things. It could be all sorts of things we just don’t know about. That’s why we need to pay attention to kids. You know, know your kids,” he said.
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Nationally the frequency of suicide among youth during the past decade remained high, though it’s declined since the end of the Covid pandemic.
The most recent CDC data showed a decline in suicide rates among youth in 2022. The overall suicide rate among youth aged 10 to 14 dropped 18% compared to 2021. For those aged 15 to 25 the rate plunged 9% compared to 2021.
Those short-term statistics for people like Purnell are good news but the overall trend for youth suicide remained high for more than 10 years. Statistics recorded between 2007 and 2021 show the suicide rate in ages 10 to 24 climbed by 62%.
In Oregon every school must retain a suicide prevention plan which is a key foundational element to preventing deaths, said Goldthorpe.
“We believe a comprehensive plan is essential so that every person in the district from administrators, teachers, and support staff know their role if they see a suicidal attempt, gesture, or in ideation,” said Goldthorpe.
Goldthorpe said another key goal to prevent youth suicide is to approach the challenge in an initiative-taking way.
“We want to give them (youth) the tools they need by reducing the stigma around asking for help, teaching skills they need to increase their resiliency, and to create supportive environments where they feel like they belong and can succeed,” said Goldthorpe.
She said the effort includes all district staff.
“At Adrian School District’s most recent suicide prevention training that their school counselor and I gave, bus drivers, kitchen staff, janitorial staff, instructional assistants, administrators and teachers were all given our suicide prevention procedure,” said Goldthorpe.
She said the training included methods to identify “warning signs, identifying trained staff to support their students and teaching the procedures they follow.”
Another challenge is erasing shame among youth tied to an effort to seek mental health assistance.
“There is often a stigma regarding help seeking, especially around the topic of suicide. Students may feel isolation or shame regarding their feelings. This may draw them into more isolation and help seeking in unhealthy ways - via risky behavior, unhealthy online support, or negative peer support,” she said.
That’s why, she said, the existence of a viable suicide prevention plan is crucial.
“When we have a comprehensive plan, we can provide a variety of healthy supports at different levels to address a variety of warning signs that we may see. This ensures that everyone in our school can provide a tiered approach to support suicidal risk and create a culture of care and belonging,” said Goldthorpe.
Risk factors, said Goldthorpe, can include a wide array of issues such as prolonged stress, stressful life events, or rejection.
“We like to combine teaching student’s healthy skills they need to build their resiliency with creating healthy activities that help them to feel a sense of purpose and belonging,” said Goldthorpe.
Susuki said the mission of her team isn’t “just about fixing problems.”
“It is about building strong relationships and providing professional development to make sure every student feels safe, supported and on track to graduate,” she said.
The members of the Student Wellness Team take their job seriously and their business is saving lives.
