United Way supports mental wellness services to high school students

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United Way supports mental wellness services to high school students
United Way supports mental wellness services to high school students

“According to the World Health Organization, half of all mental health conditions start by age 14,” said Amanda Weiler, Health Impact Manager at United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County. “Most cases go undetected and untreated until many years later. Or sometimes not at all.”

It’s not easy being an adolescent or a young adult in 2024 

Mental wellness is a significant issue for teens. According to the CDC, in 2021, 44% of teens nationwide felt persistently sad or hopeless – the highest rate ever recorded. Locally, from 2019-2021, calls to the Children’s Wisconsin mental health team tripled. According to the 2023 Wisconsin Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 59% of Wisconsin high school students reported experiencing at least one mental health challenge within the past year

“The details are staggering,” said Weiler. “According to the World Health Organization, suicide is the third leading cause of death among youths 15-29 years old. Depression, eating disorders and substance use are common among this age group.”

Introducing a new initiative

In early 2022, United Way brought together mental health experts to collaborate on solutions for youth mental health within our community. Advice and guidance came from local, state and national experts, as well as those with lived experience.

A new initiative was launched called Teen Mental Wellness: Empowering Minds. The focus of the initiative is on changing the lives of high school students by centering on prevention, equity and access to mental health services.

United Way has entered multi-year partnerships with schools to provide them with the resources and technical assistance they need to create comprehensive school mental health systems and serve the mental wellness needs of all their students.

Beginning in January 2023, United Way partnered with two local high schools to pilot the initiative, serving nearly 1,800 students.

“We learned two important keys to success for this initiative during the pilot phase,” said Weiler. 

“First, the needs of each school are unique. It is important that we continue to allow each school to use the funding in a way that best supports the specific challenges students are facing at their high school.”

Each school develops its own Mental Wellness Team that includes student and caregiver voices. This team is responsible for implementing a system that works best for their school’s unique community. Common examples include professional development opportunities for staff, such as suicide prevention training or youth mental health first aid training, partnering with local mental health professionals to provide free one-on-one therapy at the school for students and hosting mental health promotion events for students and families.

“The second lesson learned,” continued Weiler, “was to continue to connect schools with trained school based mental health implementation coaches to guide them on supporting the individual needs of their high school.”

Both pilot schools made significant progress toward fully implementing a comprehensive system.

United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County has set a goal: Empowering Minds Schools will elevate the mental wellness of 21,000 high school students by 2030.

How do schools measure success?

Achieving targeted milestones is the centerpiece of Teen Mental Wellness: Empowering Minds. Six milestones are based on Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction’s School Mental Health Framework, which was informed by the National Center for School Mental Health, which is based at the University of Maryland. 

The six milestones are:

  • Needs assessment: mapping the current state and sharing all existing resources with students and parents.
  • Collaboration: building bridges with students, parents, community providers and the school to regularly engage on mental health.
  • Referral pathways: the school knowing when and how to triage students who need support into the right level of help.
  • Comprehensive resources: promoting and supporting overall mental wellness and early interventions, as well as having the ability to get care for students who need a higher level of support.
  • Sustainability and evaluation: these criteria determine what’s working and how to keep it going.

A milestone is achieved when schools implement the necessary components that improve their specific Mental Health System. Quantitative and qualitative data is collected to ensure each component and milestone functions as intended.

Teen Mental Wellness: Empowering Minds will expand to an additional seven high schools beginning in the 2024 – 2025 school year, for a total of nine participating schools.

  • Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy
  • Milwaukee Academy of Science
  • James Madison Academic Campus
  • Messmer High School
  • Pius XI High School
  • Grafton High School
  • Waukesha South High School
  • Waukesha West High School
  • Wauwatosa West High School

United Way will partner with these schools over the next several years as they work to implement a school mental health system and ensure sustainability, bringing on additional schools each of the next five years.

“We will continue to build and scale toward our goal of elevating the mental wellness of 21,000 high school students by 2030,” said Weiler.

You can learn more about Teen Mental Wellness: Empowering Minds by visiting www.unitedwaygmwc.org.

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