Ava Petersen is an 8th-grade student in Crystal Lake. Last year, during spring break, her friend messaged her. One of their friends might be in trouble. They seemed depressed. She was worried something bad could happen. She didn’t know what to do, but thought Ava would.
“It was over spring break, so there were no trusted adults at school that I could talk to," she said. "So, I ended up calling for a wellness check just to make sure that person was okay.”
Thankfully, they were. And, after break, Ava told a school counselor to check in on their classmate.
“They could have needed serious help," said Petersen, "and if no one was there to help them — you never know what is going to happen."
Her friend thought she could help because Ava is a member of her middle school’s “Hope Squad.” It’s where students receive suicide prevention training from mental health specialists. They learn to spot the flashing warning lights of a potential crisis on the horizon.
Ava and the Hope Squad are elected by their peers as people they can trust and can come to if they don’t know where to turn. She says most kids prefer talking to someone their age first, because they might feel like they’ll get in trouble if they tell an adult.
In its first year or so, Ava says the Hope Squad has helped dozens of fellow students connect with the support they need.
“Kids shouldn't need to struggle by themselves," she said. "I think they should be able to get the help that they need so they can feel better.”
And, now, her classmates at Crystal Lake District 47 have even more mental health resources within reach. All of the district’s Kindergarten - Eighth grade students can get free, one-on-one teletherapy sessions. It’s through a partnership with service provider Daybreak Health, that was funded through a federal school-based mental health services grant.
Kristin Schmidt is the district’s director of social-emotional learning and a therapist. She says schools have taken on a bigger role when it comes to their student’s mental healthcare.
“Our priority should be on them being able to access their learning environment," said Schmidt. "But, for some students, those mental health needs kind of preclude them from being able to do that."
The U.S. Department of Education grants also allowed them to hire more in-person clinicians. Those local clinicians can refer students for teletherapy. That includes one-on-one therapy for students older than 10 and family therapy for even younger students.
While Daybreak works with schools across the country, Crystal Lake 47 is the first district in Illinois to partner with it to provide this kind of teletherapy support.
Schmidt says this isn’t supposed to replace in-person therapy services, but it gives families more flexibility.
“There is an accessibility barrier," she said, "whether it's born out of insurance or finance or transportation or just the mental health needs of the parents, potentially, to manage what needs to be managed to get the kids what they need."
Dozens of students received therapy when they slowly rolled it out last spring, but now even more students are taking advantage of it.
The district’s contract with Daybreak runs through the school year -- and Schmidt says they may continue it depending on how well it works for students. They won’t just measure success by how many students use it, though. They’ll also see if it translates to student success.
“Maybe it's looking at office discipline referrals, absentee rates, nurse's visits, things like that," she said. "Things we would look at that would be data points to kind of speak to what improved outcomes when [students] mental health needs or behavioral health needs are addressed."
Schmidt says she’d love it if more schools could offer this level of mental health support, especially with the help of federal grants like theirs. She says Crystal Lake was one of over 100 school districts across the country to receive the grant last year.
Last year, the Department of Education announced nearly $200 million worth of school-based mental health services grants from the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. That money allowed schools to hire more than 5,000 more school mental health professionals.
Back at her middle school, Ava’s now helping train other students new to the Hope Squad. She tells the new sixth grade students to take their friend’s warning signs seriously. When someone’s struggling, it takes a lot to reach out -- even to a friend you trust. So, she says, you owe it to them to help -- especially since she and her classmates now know where to find it.
