Even before Covid-19 upended daily school and family routines and brought untold new levels of stress to students’ lives, many were already struggling with depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. The most recent Ottawa County Youth Assessment Survey showed that nearly 20% of local teens have seriously thought about suicide, 13% have made a plan, and 8% have attempted suicide.
This means that in the average middle and high school classroom, five students have had suicidal thoughts and two of those five have previously attempted suicide. Between the increasingly concerning data and the terrible reality of losing students to suicide, local educators and health professionals asked what more our community could do.
In 2019, one answer to this question became clear. With the support of a $75,000 grant from our Community’s Endowment, Holland Hospital launched a pilot program to address student mental health at Holland Public Schools. This grant funded the hiring of a new School Mental Health Care Manager. Registered nurse Lisa Gort was hired into the role in the summer of 2019, after years of working with Holland Public Schools as a school nurse.
Lisa said, “Working in the school, I was seeing a lot of kids with mental health issues. And I felt like the problem was escalating — in part due to a lack of coordinated follow-through.”
Students were falling through the cracks because no one was able to take on the job of coordinating and managing care between the school, family, caregivers, and physicians. The grant from our Community’s Endowment allowed Lisa to step into that gap and fill the need for consistent and coordinated response to students with depression, suicidal ideation, and other major mental health concerns.
Lisa works from what she describes as a ‘birds-eye’ view and averages 20 active cases at a time. Her first step is usually determining what support system the student has available. From there, she establishes connections between those points of support. To encourage providers to speak to one another directly, Lisa helps parents/guardians navigate the process of signing privacy releases so that information can be shared amongst key individuals. Parents, school staff and healthcare providers have given positive feedback in the program’s first year, many of them expressing relief and happiness to have one individual coordinating the moving pieces for at-risk students.
This work has become even more urgent given the added strains on mental health that Covid-19 brought. “We’re still uncovering the impacts of that time in lockdown and the continued uncertainty in students’ lives right now,” said Lisa. “We’re adapting to ensure kids can receive the support they need safely and making sure they and their parents know they’re not in this alone.”
Originally featured in the Community Foundation’s 2020 Winter Newsletter.