Mental Health Programs for High School Students

Create an open, positive dialogue surrounding mental health

Designed specifically for high-school students, these programs will help increase awareness for a variety of mental health issues that commonly affect high-school aged students. By increasing education and awareness, students will be empowered to self-recognize signs and symptoms, within themselves and peers, and be able to give or find strategies for seeking help. This type of education is key to help these adolescents prepare for life beyond high school. 

Sources of Strength

Audience: Middle School, High School Students

Description: Strives to provide the highest-quality, evidence-based prevention for suicide, violence, bullying, and substance abuse by training, supporting, and empowering both peer leaders and caring adults to impact the world through the power of connection, hope, help and strength. The driving vision behind the program is to give voice and elevate the various strengths people have to offer and affect communities positively.

There must be two to five adult advisors, who mentor a peer leader team. These advisors can hold a variety of roles including: teachers, counselors, spiritual leaders, community adults, etc. Advisors lead peer teams, often between 10-50 students in size. The initial peer leader training is provided by a certified Sources of Strength trainer in a three to four hour, highly interactive training process. It is mandatory that the local adult advisors participate in the peer leader training.

After the initial training, the peer leaders and adult advisors begin a three to six month series of conversations with other trusted adults and their five to ten closest friends, as well as, create a wide range of Hope, Help, Strength messaging activities targeting a wider and diverse peer group. Sources of Strength provides a recommended step by step guide of peer leader activities, but teams are able to adjust based on their readiness level and perception of what will work best in their setting.

Sources of Strength templates and resources assist with peers connecting with adults and their friendship groups. These templates include examples of local faces posters, local voices audio, videos, presentations, skits, text forwarding, and internet social networking message. Peer teams are encouraged and expected to share their creative efforts with other teams across the country via Sources of Strength webpages, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Sources of Strength staff provides monthly teleconference support and planning materials and resources for each step of the way.

Cost: In Ohio and Kentucky, this program is fully funded by state grants.  Others can contact 1N5 for funding options (info@1n5.org).

sourcesofstrength.org

Lap Around the Wellness Wheel

Audience: K-12 & College Level

Description: An interactive lap around the Sources of Strength wellness wheel. Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on the people, places, and practices that help support their mental health and wellbeing and learn new ways to build wellness into their lives. This is a high-energy session of sharing, learning, and FUN!

Cost: Contact 1N5 for funding options (info@1n5.org)
Cincinnati Youth Council for Suicide Prevention (YCSP)

Audience:High School Students, College Students

Description: The YCSP was initiated in 2013 to address the need for continued attention to suicide prevention in Cincinnati, Ohio. Today, the YCSP is in partnership with 1N5, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, and University of Cincinnati CECH’s Office of Innovation and Community Partnerships. Since the council’s formation, approximately 75 youth have served on the council. YCSP values the voice of young people and aims to empower youth to address an issue that has a profound affect on them. Members are recruited from area schools and most members have dealt with suicide first-hand through family, friends or their own attempts. Since its foundation, YCSP has contributed to the work of CCHMC in a variety of ways: advising researchers on suicide screening in the pediatric emergency department, presenting work at regional high schools and at a regional high school leadership conference, and youth-led research projects involving surveys and interviews with peers and parents. The YCSP accepts applications on a rolling basis. To apply, contact Katie Keiser at Katie_Keiser@1n5.org

Cost: Free
SEL Programming

Audience: K-12

Description: Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, make responsible decisions.

Cost: Varies

SEL Programs

Classroom Mental Health

Audience: High School Students

Description: Classroom Mental Health provides a toolkit for teachers and other school professionals to help them improve communication, promote wellness, and reduce stigma regarding mental health. The website was developed by experts at the University of Michigan Depression Center in partnership with teachers. The goal of the website is to provide high school administrators and personnel with access to strategies which can be utilized with students to help support wellness and mental health. The website provides referral resources and classroom strategies to promote positive mental health and positive coping skills for students.

Cost: Free

Classroommentalhealth.org

Break Free from Depression
  • Audience: High School Students
  • Description: Developed with Boston Children’s Hospital Department of Psychiatry, this a 4-module curriculum focused on increasing awareness about adolescent depression and designed for use in high school classrooms. The goals are to increase adolescents’ awareness about depression, teach them how to recognize it in themselves and in their friends, and give them strategies for finding help.
  • Cost: Online for free.
  • Break Free from Depression
QPR
  • Audience: Faculty, Staff and Parents
  • Description: An emergency mental health intervention modeled after CPR education: early recognition and early intervention yields successful outcomes. QPR seeks to educate the general public about warning signs of suicide crisis and how to respond appropriately. Lasting approximately one hour, training is conducted either in person or online and includes: techniques to help someone who is suicidal, how to help prevent suicide, common causes of suicidal behavior, warning signs, and resources to help someone in crisis. QPR is the most widespread gatekeeper training in the nation.
  • Cost: Contact 1N5 for pricing (info@1n5.org)
Adapt for Life – Surviving the Teens
  • Audience: Middle School, High School Students
  • Description: Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center created this program to provide in-school mental health education. This program is the most comprehensive, and it remains broadly used in the community.  In the 2021-2022 school year Adapt for Life reached almost 22,000 students in the Greater Cincinnati area. The program consists of a weeklong inoculation of middle and high school students on the signs and symptoms of mental health issues and available resources for not only themselves but others as well.
  • Cost: CCHMC works with other private entities to cover costs and make the program free of charge to schools.
  • Contact: Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Medical Center Division of Psychiatry
    Stacey Hoffman
    513-802-8630
    Stacey.Hoffman@cchmc.org
Signs of Suicide Prevention Program (SOS)
  • Audience: Middle School, High School Students
  • Description: The Signs of Suicide Prevention Program (SOS) is a universal, school-based depression awareness and suicide prevention program designed for middle school (ages 11–13) or high-school (ages 13–17) students. The goals are to (1) decrease suicide and suicide attempts by increasing student knowledge and adaptive attitudes about depression, (2) encourage personal help-seeking and/or help-seeking on behalf of a friend, (3) reduce the stigma of mental illness and acknowledge the importance of seeking help or treatment, (4) engage parents and school staff as partners in prevention through gatekeeper education, and (5) encourage schools to develop community-based partnerships to support student mental health.Both the middle and high school programs provide age-appropriate, educational DVDs for school staff to play for students. The middle school video, Time to ACT, and the high school video, Friends for Life, inform students how to ACT® (Acknowledge, Care and Tell), demonstrate the right and wrong ways to help, and show a student talking with a school counselor. The program includes an optional student screening that assesses for depression and suicide risk and identifies students to refer for professional help as indicated. The program also includes a video, Training Trusted Adults, to engage staff, parents, or community members in the program’s objectives and prevention efforts.
  • Cost: Program kit is $495
  • Signs of Suicide
Classroom Mental Health

Audience: High School Students

Description: Classroom Mental Health provides a toolkit for teachers and other school professionals to help them improve communication, promote wellness, and reduce stigma regarding mental health. The website was developed by experts at the University of Michigan Depression Center in partnership with teachers. The goal of the website is to provide high school administrators and personnel with access to strategies which can be utilized with students to help support wellness and mental health. The website provides referral resources and classroom strategies to promote positive mental health and positive coping skills for students.

Cost: Free

Classroommentalhealth.org


Stop the Stigma.

Start the Conversation.


Get in Touch