Coalition reports 29% teen anxiety rate at lunch program

Teen mental health and substance use concerns took center stage at the Chamber Luncheon as the Unicoi County Prevention Coalition updated leaders on new school programs.Local leaders heard a snapshot of youth mental health and substance use on Wednesday during the Unicoi County Chamber of Commerce quarterly Membership Luncheon. Before getting into data, UCPC Director Christy Smith told attendees what guides the coalition's approach."We want to create a safe and healthy community, and that doesn't just involve me — it involves my employees and the whole coalition," she said. "I always go back to the African adage that it takes a village to raise a child."Smith said there is a growing mental health challenge among young people in the county."Teen mental health is a huge problem in Unicoi County," Smith said. "Every two years, we do a survey for high school students that goes over substance use and mental health, and we held it again this school year back in April. There was a smaller number of students participating in it this year, but 29% of students surveyed said they experience challenges with mental health, worrying, anxiety or depression.""That's a lot for your eighth, 10th and 12th grade students," she added.Smith said the coalition's mission is broad by design and centers on reducing and preventing health disparities across the county, but especially for the youth."That includes substance use and also mental health in youth and adults," she said. "We are dedicated to building a healthier, substance free future for our youth."She said one of the coalition's largest partners is the school district."We're there almost every week in the schools," she said. "Whether that be educating our youth on substance use, mental health or World Kindness Day. Today is actually the Great American Smoke-Out. We're up there today doing some education on tobacco use."She said that aside from programming at the school, the coalition distributes resource guides in English and Spanish that list treatment providers, mental health contacts, hotline numbers and places offering food, clothing and general assistance."It's just anything and everything," she said.Smith highlighted the coalition's Youth Mentoring Program, calling it one of her favorite and most effective ways to do outreach."It is based on the Parks and Recreation out of Elizabethton, but it is an evidence-based program," she said. "Their program was from adult to child, while ours is peer to peer."She said high-achieving tenth through twelfth graders mentor at-risk middle school students weekly during school hours."Today, we have about 15 students, mentees and mentors, and you will see a big difference in their attitudes and the violations that may occur, whether it be vaping or something else."One of the coalition's challenges compounding the issue, Smith said, is reaching families."We are living in a world where the family dynamics have changed dramatically," she said. "We have a lot of students who are raised by their grandparents, raised by someone else in their family and then we have a lot of foster care students, too."After encountering a middle school student who did not have food, Smith said the coalition helped create resource closets in schools across the district. They now stock school supplies, clothing, shoes, hygiene products and mental health books.She credited support from Kiwanis, the Unicoi County Long-Term Recovery Group, Second Harvest Food Bank and many individual donors, adding that coalition members often purchase items themselves when a student needs help immediately.Smith said breaking stigma also remains a priority. She noted that 71 students have already completed Teen Mental Health First Aid training this year."They learn how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental health and substance use issues that they might see within their peers," she said. "At some point, all the high school students will be trained in this."She said the high school's Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) Club has grown to 24 members and now works on statewide safety and suicide-prevention campaigns."We train them, and we also train them specifically on QPR, which is 'Question Persuade and Refer,' which is a suicide prevention training."Smith said alongside those programs the coalition continues to work with the YMCA and other partners on education related to vaping violations, marijuana use and national awareness campaigns."We just had Suicide Prevention Month in September, and so every week we're at the YMCA," she said. "We talked to students about stuff like that and how to even just be a friend to someone or be kind to someone because you never know what they might be going through."She said the coalition is also becoming more involved with the Tennessee Alliance for Drug Endangered Children."If you call TBI, they will tell you straight out that human trafficking in our state is most related to parents selling their kids for drugs," she said. "It's not someone who is snatching them in public or meeting them online – it's mostly kids who are being sold."