Box Elder, Rocky Boy students to receive mental health awareness training

Staff and wire report

Two local high schools - and a local college - are involved in a program to work on on promoting mental health awareness in Indian Country.

Montana State University Extension and Stone Child College on Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation received a $1.28 million grant to develop mental health awareness campaigns on the Flathead and Rocky Boy's Indian reservations, a press release said.

Four high schools - Rocky Boy, Box Elder, Ronan and St. Ignatius - will offer Youth Aware of Mental Health training, taught by MSU Extension professionals, to four groups of freshmen. 

Brenda Richey, Flathead Reservation Extension agent and a project site director for Ronan and St. Ignatius high schools, highlighted the importance of breaking down the mental health stigma.

"I believe that when we empower our youth with fact-based knowledge and give them a platform to share that knowledge with their peers, then we will start to see a decline in youth depression and suicides. That is the opportunity this ... grant brings to the Flathead Reservation," Richey said, who is also a Youth Aware of Mental Health instructor.

Montana was ranked the highest per capita state in the nation for suicides in 2017, the last year data was available, and the rate is extremely high on Montana's reservations.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture's Children, Youth, Families at Risk grant program funded the project, with a goal of increasing awareness of social, emotional and physical health in a holistic way in Indian Country. The program will provide classroom mental health awareness and technology instruction; after-school leadership group meetings; experimental learning through the development of technology and outreach with businesses and organizations in the community.

As part of the program, students in technology clubs will work on developing several ventures, such as a phone app, an e-magazine with content relating to mental health, as well as designing and creating a logo and laser-cut tokens. The technology projects are tangible items that are meant to help engage the students with community members, organizations and businesses to increase awareness of mental health issues in their community. 4-H after-school groups will work with the technology students to facilitate extended outreach and engagement in their communities.

"The primary and most important aspect of this project is the connection between youth and the community," Stephanie Davison, MSU Extension associate specialist, project co-director and principal investigator on the grant, said. "Through a holistic approach using multiple methods, teens will learn both life and technical skills that will allow them to lead a community campaign to raise awareness of social, emotional and physical wellness, with an emphasis on mental health. By improving social, emotional and physical skills, at-risk youth will have improved coping skills, increased emotional intelligence and better ability to address and solve social problems."

Youth Aware of Mental Health training will begin in September. For more information about the grant, contact Davison at sdavison@montana.edu or Mary Ruth St. Pierre, Stone Child College Extension agent, at mstpierre@stonechild.edu.