成人抖阴

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Life lines in Austin: Combatting the teen mental health crisis 鈥� After two years of fear and isolation among teens across the country, suicide attempts among adolescents are up along with substance abuse rates. Anger and despair are palpable in middle and high school hallways, students say, as the pandemic鈥檚 youth mental health crisis rages. But counselors, mentors, and teachers in Austin, Texas, have developed a plan, strategically deploying resources targeting suicide, teen alcoholism, social isolation. The approach is working. Teens and adults say they  are seeing glimmers of hope. In this series 成人抖阴 looks at three pre-pandemic programs offering lifelines to students in their late-pandemic distress. 

As teenage boys in Austin, Texas, returned to school last fall after more than a year learning remotely at home, counselors were alarmed to see how many were talking about suicide. 

鈥淲e鈥檝e definitely seen an increase in suicidal ideation,鈥� said Roxie Frederick, a counselor at Austin Independent School District鈥檚 Alternative Learning Center who often meets the boys after their emotions have boiled over into an angry confrontation resulting in disciplinary action. 

The teens are then sent to the alternative campus after a disciplinary incident, where Frederick gets them talking about what鈥檚 really going on 鈥� and it鈥檚 not always easy to get them beyond the monosyllabic answers.

But once she does, Frederick discovers just how many of them are losing hope 鈥� like many youth across the country who are battling mental health issues after two years of isolation, fear, and struggle.

 鈥淵oung males who seem tough are opening up about it,.鈥� she said, adding it often means the teenage boys are pretty far into crisis.

The teen boys in Austin are part of a larger and terrifying trend. In 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Children鈥檚 Hospital Association issued a joint statement declaring children鈥檚 mental health, especially children of color, a ; and a Centers for Disease Control survey found 20 percent of teens had contemplated suicide, and nearly 10 percent had attempted it. 

But that same offered a solution: Students who felt more connected to their peers had better mental health, and were less likely to report contemplating or attempting suicide. 

So even though the desperation at the heart of the mental health crisis is largely beyond Frederick and her colleagues鈥� control鈥攖hey can鈥檛 bring back family members who died during the pandemic, loss of parents鈥� jobs, or social confidence鈥� they are committed to making sure the young men can keep talking. To share their fears and frustrations before they either lash out and end up expelled, or worse, succumb to hopelessness.

A lot of the problems start in middle school, and this year鈥檚 12-14 year-olds are in a particular bind.

The 7th grade boys from Covington Middle School missed a critical transition year, and they鈥檝e felt it. It鈥檚 always been tempting to act tough instead of asking for help, the boys said, but the pandemic worked against them from several directions. It made them feel distant from their classmates, it deepened their anxiety and frustration, and it created a sense that the entire world was too fragile to handle whatever burdens they were carrying. 

Parents worried about jobs and health didn鈥檛 always have the bandwidth for the emotions of a kid missing their friends, or struggling with school. Friends were accessible online, but the crises in their homes often kept them from having much to offer by way of support.

鈥淔rom the pandemic, you know, we forgot how to talk to people,鈥� said Tremain Purnell, one of the kids in the Project MALES group.   

Frederick knows the reality: there鈥檚 not always a licensed counselor around when a boy is in crisis, especially for families who cannot afford a private therapist. Schools rarely have the student to counselor ratio they would need to meet the demand. Knowing that mental health resources will be hardest to access for young men of color, who disproportionately experience poverty and underfunded schools, she often connects them with Project MALES (Mentoring to Achieve Latino Educational Success), a mentoring program primarily for Black and Latino young men.

The group setting makes it seem normal to talk about tough feelings. It gives them language to describe their struggles. And when the boys are done with their stint at the alternative center, usually just a couple of weeks, there鈥檚 likely already a Project MALES group on their home campus where they can continue getting that support. 

Serving around 200 boys on 13 Austin campuses, Project MALES is preventative as much as it is responsive. The mentors want to help as many boys as possible before something happens that would land them in alternative school, disrupting their academic progress. They do that by helping them understand the social and emotional challenges at the heart of their behavior. 

After two years of pandemic pressure kids need someone to talk to about challenging emotions more than ever. But it鈥檚 not easy to tell people how you feel, admitted Jordan Kennedy, a seventh grader at Covington Middle School in Austin. Vulnerability and seeking support can be the opposite of the tough, unaffected personas young men are trying to project.

鈥嬧�嬧�淚t鈥檚 honestly kind of hard, and sometimes we try to hide our feelings,鈥� Kennedy said. Though he says he鈥檚 naturally pretty outgoing and jovial, 鈥渢here is a kind of pressure, I鈥檓 not gonna lie. 2020 and 2021 has been a lot.鈥�

It鈥檚 different when he goes to Project MALES. There Kennedy and seven other boys gather to talk through the ups and downs of their week, and practice both asking for and offering support to each other. Their mentor, a student at the University of Texas, offers support based on over a decade of research on improving academic and life outcomes for Black and Latinx young men.

鈥淲e want to provide space and opportunity for men to have these conversations they may not be able to have anywhere else,鈥� said Emmet Campos, the director of Project MALES and the Texas Education Consortium for Male Students of Color. Sessions often start with the boys sharing their 鈥渉appies and crappies鈥� from the week, he said, and using those experiences to work on social and emotional skills. These 鈥減ower skills鈥� have always been necessary, he said, but the pandemic made it even more so. Whatever challenges they had were exacerbated by isolation. 

But staying connected over Zoom was almost impossible, the boys at Covington said, especially as they started middle school with a bunch of kids they had not met before. 

鈥淚 would barely talk. I don鈥檛 really like to talk over computers,鈥� Purnell said. 

 Most kids, sick of online learning, weren鈥檛 as engaged with online mentoring, Campos said. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 replace the in person engagement for young men鈥� 

A year online didn鈥檛 give them much to build on when they came back this year, either. 

鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 be able to know people over the computer, because I might not know what they looked like,鈥� Kennedy said. Since they鈥檝e been back,鈥渢here has been some kind of awkwardness.鈥� 

The Project MALES group has helped ease that awkwardness, especially for the members who were the most uncomfortable coming back, he said. 鈥淲hen I joined the group there were more people to talk to, more team work things, more collaboration.鈥�

It鈥檚 also a place where talking about your feelings isn鈥檛 just allowed, but encouraged and modeled by the mentor, Purnell said. It makes it easy to follow suit. 鈥淚f someone鈥檚 feeling down, you can ask them 鈥榳hat鈥檚 up, how you doing?鈥欌��

It feels natural and casual, but the Project MALES mentorship is heavily intentional. Housed in the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin, the mentorship is one pillar of a larger intercollegiate initiative to study the experiences of young men of color in educational settings. As they researched outcomes, particularly for Latinx males, Campos said, the founders of the initiative saw the value in mentorship, and decided to put their research into practice accordingly.

鈥淢entoring is a powerful intervention strategy,鈥� Campos said, 鈥淓verybody can point to a mentor in their life that has made a difference.鈥� 

The Project MALES staff is made up of paid doctoral students and undergraduate volunteers who receive stipends and take a two-semester class to prepare them to mentor the middle school and high school boys. The mentorship is aligned with Austin Independent School District鈥檚 social and emotional learning curriculum, and uses what Campos calls 鈥渃ritical mentoring鈥� and restorative justice. The boys chosen to be in the program are often those who need a mid-level behavioral intervention, Campos explained. Instead of punishment, a has allowed Austin ISD to expand its restorative justice efforts with programs like Project MALES. 

For those students who do end up at the Alternative Learning Center after an expulsion, Austin ISD has not given up restorative and therapeutic discipline, said Frederick. 

Having groups like Project MALES on the campus at ALC allows the licensed professional counselors to focus on individual needs, she said. For some kids this will be their first and last access to professional mental health services. 鈥淭here鈥檚 definitely a shortage of therapists in Austin.鈥� 

Many would benefit from more focused therapy, but a lot can be done if those students are willing to talk to a caring adult and peers about their feelings. 鈥淚f I can just show you that it鈥檚 okay to talk about your feelings,鈥� Frederick said, she can connect them with support, often Project MALES or Communities in Schools, on their home campus.

Given the prevalence of the crisis, she added, every school would benefit from a full time presence to be there when the need arises, whether that鈥檚 school staff, mentors, or nonprofit case managers from Communities in Schools. A scheduled check in with a counselor or mentor is great, she said, but kids can鈥檛 always schedule their crises around adults鈥� availability. The biggest impact will be in the moment, she said. 鈥淭he real work happens when they slam the door and walk out of class.鈥�

If you are in crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

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