District officials said they want students struggling with mental health issues to be able to call for assistance during the summer.
The Anoka-Hennepin School District, which was shaken by seven student suicides over 18 months, the most recent in May, has set up a summer help line for students and their families struggling with mental health issues.
“We have serious unmet mental health needs. I couldn’t sleep at night thinking about it,” Superintendent Dennis Carlson said on Tuesday. “With the school year ending, our students need to know that Anoka-Hennepin cares about them even when they’re not in school.”
The district, the state’s largest, conducted a survey and found that more than 500 students spoke to a trusted staff or faculty member during the school year about suicidal thoughts or self-injurious behavior, Carlson said. This was the first year the survey was taken.
“We wanted to be clear about how serious these issues are, and it was a response to having six suicides up to that time,” said Ellen Perrault of the district’s communications office.
According to the most recent statistics from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Minnesota had more suicides per 100,000 15- to 19-year-olds than the national average. Minnesota’s rate was 8.69 per 100,000 in 2009 and 10.87 in 2010, compared to the national average of 6.87.
In the 10- to 14-year-old group, Minnesota recorded six suicides in 2010, compared with one in 2009. In the 15- to 19-year-old age group, there were 40 suicides in the state in 2010, up from 32 in 2009.
“One suicide is one too many. There’s no question the rates are going up. We’re trying to figure out what’s going on and why,” said Mark Kinde, director of the injury and violence prevention program at the Minnesota Department of Health.
The new program, “Anoka-Hennepin Cares – Summer Support,” is expected to have starting costs of $50,000 to $100,000 and will be based at the Welcome Center in Coon Rapids.
As the school year ends, students will be given wallet-size cards with phone numbers they can call. Similar information also will be mailed with report cards to students’ homes.
District staffers will be available to take phone calls starting June 13 and will be able to help people get support services they might need. The number — 763-433-4695 — will be staffed 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday over the summer.
“Too many of our youth are thinking of suicide right after times of trouble, and this is the first time a district has said, ‘We want to help,’” said Dr. Dan Reidenberg, executive director of Suicide Awareness Voices of Education.
Other districts watching
Neighboring school districts said they would be open to adopting such a program.
The Minneapolis district said it has two crisis consultants on call for the summer and expects to pay careful attention to areas affected by the recent tornado, but does not have a help line like Anoka-Hennepin’s. “I think that the help line is a good idea, and we’d be interested to see if it works and if the need is there and then we’d be interested in learning more about it,” said Rachel Hicks, district spokesperson.
Carlson said that economic factors may be leading to more stress among students in his district. In April, Anoka County had an unemployment rate of 6.7 percent, and last year there were more than 2,200 home foreclosures in the county.
Psychologist Karen Anderson joined Anoka High School this year through a grant under a federal program, Project School Emergency Response to Violence.
“I was alarmed when I first got the phone call to help this school to hear the numbers and short period of time in which those suicides occurred,” she said. “The bottom line is that [the summer program] can save lives and hopefully catch things earlier on.”
Tasnim Shamma • 612-673-7603
Twitter: @TasnimS
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