A 10-minute computer questionnaire will soon help thousands of local high-schoolers learn whether they are going though normal teenage angst or a depression that could put them at risk of committing suicide.
The announcement comes two weeks after a report showed that the suicide rate among Maine children and teens runs higher than the national average. Depression is the top reason children 6 to 17 are hospitalized in Maine.
Lewiston High School, Edward Little High School in Auburn and Mountain Valley High School in Rumford will offer the computerized questionnaire, known as TeenScreen, to students who visit or are referred to the school health center.
The questionnaire, which covers anxiety, depression, substance abuse and suicidal thoughts and behavior, will help health center counselors immediately gauge a student’s risk for suicide. Counselors will then help at-risk students get professional aid within the community.
Lots of issues
“There’s a lot of things going on with these kids, a lot of things in their heads, a lot of home issues, a lot of peer pressure,” said Mary Dunlap, who is coordinating the program for SAD 43 in Rumford.
Until now, Lewiston and Auburn schools used a general questionnaire that judged whether a student was at risk for drug abuse, alcoholism and other problems. Each school system will continue to offer that survey, but they will now use TeenScreen for suicide and depression.
SAD 43 started using TeenScreen last year but had to stop when the employee who was trained to use it left.
Rumford hopes to offer the questionnaire this spring. Lewiston and Auburn high schools plan to offer it in fall.
Officials say the new program will help them better identify depressed teenagers and students considering suicide and get them the early intervention they need.
“It’s not a high incidence (of suicide) here. But there are some,” said Linda Nadeau, who is overseeing the program for Lewiston-Auburn. “It’s not a high percentage, but even 1 percent is too high.”
Because the screening is voluntary, parents and students must both give their permission.
Lewiston and Auburn, which will work together, received $14,400 from the Maine chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, or NAMI, to help pay for the new services. NAMI received the money from the Maine Office of Rural Health and Primary Care. It chose Lewiston-Auburn because it wanted to bring TeenScreen to an urban school system.
SAD 43, which serves Byron, Roxbury, Mexico and Rumford, received $5,000. It was chosen because Mountain Valley High School already had a brief experience with TeenScreen and the school was interested in continuing the program, particularly after a student committed suicide last year.
Using the NAMI money, Lewiston-Auburn and SAD 43 will also start a series of classes for middle and high school parents who want to learn about mental health issues.
The 11-week series will begin Wednesday, and classes will run from 4 to 6 p.m. at Auburn Middle School. Topics will include finances and available mental health services, treatments, childhood development and facing mental illness in the family.
SAD 43’s classes had not yet been scheduled.
Ultimately, each school system also hopes to offer similar classes for teenagers. They also plan to establish support groups for parents whose children are dealing with mental illness.
Created by Columbia University, TeenScreen is used in 40 states. SAD 43 and Lewiston-Auburn will be the first in Maine to use the program. Other Maine schools use more general questionnaires, refer their students to outside agencies or train their staff to watch for specific behaviors that could indicate that a student is depressed or at risk of committing suicide.
Go and do
What: Educational series on mental health issues
Who: For parents of middle or high school students in Lewiston-Auburn
When: Wednesday, March 2, from 4 to 6 p.m. Classes run every Wednesday for 11 weeks
Where: Auburn Middle School
To register: Call 782-6827 or go to www.laschoolbasedhealth.com
Sample TeenScreen questions:
• In the last three months, has there been a time when nothing was fun for you and you just weren’t interested in anything?
• In the last three months, have you often felt very nervous or uncomfortable when you have been with a group of children or young people, say, like in the lunchroom at school or at a party?
• Has there been a time when you felt you couldn’t do anything well or that you weren’t as good-looking or as smart as other people?
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.