PLEASANT GROVE — Superintendents have the power to make changes at the neighborhood and community level regarding student mental health.

And Anne Brown, president and CEO at the Cook Center for Human Connection, said superintendents are taking steps to do just that.

Almost 70 superintendents from across the country gathered in Pleasant Grove Friday for a Mental Health Summit to discuss the changes necessary to aid student mental well-being. Brown said the summit brought superintendents from all backgrounds, income levels and communities to come together and talk about the problem of mental health in schools.

Talking about the issue is the first step in solving this crisis, Brown said.

"In school districts, there is such great need for mental health support, but often that need outweighs the resources available," she said.

Brown spoke about online parent resources and student resources to help students struggling with mental illness. Having resources available helps parents support children while they wait for clinical support to be available.

The summit highlighted the increasing need to integrate mental health resources into education.

The Cook Center for Human Connection is a Utah-based nonprofit organization dedicated to providing resources and support for youth mental health and suicide prevention. The Cook Center, along with the School Superintendents Association, hosted the first ever Mental Health Summit where school superintendents from more than 30 states gathered to address student mental health.

The weekend-long conference included presentations of research, breakout sessions focused on actions schools can take, and superintendents connecting with mental health resources and nonprofit organizations dedicated to help. As superintendents came together, they agreed mental health is a crisis right now for students and changes need to be made to help children.

Although this was the first Mental Health Summit, it will not be the last.

The conference announced that mental health will be added to the the School Superintendents Association's cohort system, so superintendents will convene on this topic two to three times a year, including at the group's National Conference on Education in Texas in February.

This cohort will "bring educational leaders from across the country together, review emerging research, discover best practices, and make plans to facilitate change in schools for the biggest crisis facing American adolescents, teens, and adults," a press release said.

Brown announced the Cook Center is starting a matching grant program for any American school in need of a "calming" or wellness room, a place students can go to manage physical and emotional outbursts and to deal with their emotions.

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Westlake High implemented a wellness center to help students deal with anxiety and depression after several tragic deaths. A BYU study shows the center has significantly helped students.

The Cook Center was approached by Polaris High School last year to fund their "Zen Den" and because of the success from that calm room, the Cook Center wanted to make it available nationwide. Brown said the Cook Center will be giving out 20 grants of $5,000 each with schools that will match the grant to implement calm rooms into their school.

Neurologist Elizabeth Hoffman spoke about the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) research study during the summit where she discussed the importance of understanding developmental trajectories in adolescent brains. The study is the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States.

Hoffman said this research is helping educators, parents and the community know how to best help their children manage their mental wellness and understand long term impacts of connecting school environment, academic skills and adolescent development.

Joseph Stowell is a 14-year-old boy who has been participating in the brain cognitive development study since he was 9 years old. Once a year he goes to the lab to answer questions, play practice games, complete an MRI, then answer more questions and play games to try to win money.

Stowell is one of 11,880 kids across the nation who are part of this study that tracks biological and behavioral development through adolescence into young adulthood.

The study is hoping to determine how childhood experiences — sports, video games, social media, unhealthy sleep patterns — affect a child's changing biology to impact brain development and social, behavioral, academic, health and other outcomes.

Joseph's mom, Esther Stowell, said she was initially hesitant to have Joseph join the study, but now she is glad he has had the opportunity to be a part of something greater than him.

"As any parent does, you want to learn and read about your child's progress and their growth. So to have something that delves into the mind and seeing how it's growing and use that information to help other children in what they're going through was very attractive to us," she said about her and her husband's decision to have Joseph in the study.

She said the study is a worthwhile commitment because it has long-term effects not just for Joseph, but for all children as she hopes the data is used by parents and legislators to improve policies and decisions for children. Esther encourages all parents to read about the ABCD findings and find ways to be a part of it.

As a parent, Stowell said she is proud to know the leaders of schools are gathering together, doing their research and doing the work necessary to better provide tools and resources for children in education.

"It's a critical time in life," she said. Knowing superintendents across the nation are attending this conference and learning more to better serve students gives Stowell comfort that education will continue to improve for all kids.

Back-to-school outreach kits were given to everyone in attendance at the summit detailing free mental health resources available to school districts and information on ways to improve mental wellness in schools.

Suicide prevention

While superintendents at K-12 schools were meeting in Pleasant Grove, hundreds of participants gathered in person at Utah Valley University and virtually to discuss suicide prevention.

UVU's College of Humanities and Social Sciences has hosted the Suicide Prevention Conference for six years. This conference is one of three mental health conferences the college puts on each year.

"We saw a need for bringing collaborative efforts between organizations and the community members," said Candida Johnson, the marketing and communications manager for UVU's College of Humanities and Social Sciences. "We are here to build that foundation of resources for the community."

Therapists, counselors, clinicians, school district representatives, human resource department members, researchers and more came together to further their learning on mental health so they can better serve their clients and community.

Having such a diverse group of people attend the conference allows for integration between areas of expertise so they can learn from each other what the best practices are for mental health help and how to implement it into society.

"Knowing where to go to find the resources is what really matters in the community," Johnson said.

The Suicide Prevention Conference had a resource roundup where booths of therapists, counselors, hospitals, programs and more providers of mental health resources lined the hallway and handed out information about their services.

Johnson said the resource roundup was meant to break down barriers preventing people from getting access to resources and to make a connection between awareness and education of mental health.

Elissa Baldus-Hales is the admissions counselor for Youth Care, which provides residential and day treatment programs for youth struggling with mental health.

She said Youth Care came to the conference because a lot of the students fit the profile of suicidal ideation and self harm tendencies, and Youth Care is a resource option for those who might be experiencing the end of the road where they don't see hope.

Youth Care is a facility that provides tools and professionals to help children get through depression and anxiety, attachment, trauma and other things they are struggling to deal with and overcome.

"This is an opportunity for the facilities to connect and know what else is out there. As we are working with families if we are not the right fit, there could be somebody else who is," Baldus-Hales said. "I think we are all working towards healthy individuals: mentally, emotionally, everything."

Research and discussion on specific areas of mental health was presented at the conference during sessions by experts from around the world.

Course Counseling therapist Jennifer Stobart attended the conference to learn more about risk factors and protective factors and how to better help clients and friends in the community to feel that they have a purpose.

"Continuing education I think is extremely important. I love events like this," Stobart said.

Stobart and Karen Lee, another Course Counseling therapist, attended a session about how spirituality and religion affects the mental well-being of members of the LGBTQ community.

Lee said she cares about her clients and wants to keep them safe.

"Being here just helps give me more tools, more ideas, so I feel like I have the skills to connect, and bring them hope and to really help them live meaningful lives," Lee said.

Stobart said the event also helped with networking as she now knows of more resources, clinics and support services available that she can refer her clients to if they need it.

Students from UVU, the University of Utah, Utah State University and Southern Utah University in both undergrad and graduate social work programs presented posters of their own research in mental health areas.

Emily Anderson and Devon Robertson are students in UVU's masters of social work program. They had a poster presentation of their research on postpartum maternal mental health.

Their research analyzed the gap of maternal mental health care provided after women give birth and the importance of fillings gaps like these in all mental health care.

"Mental health and education really go hand in hand. When people have education and the tools and the resources to be able to combat the narrative – the negative narrative – with mental health, they're able to bring to light the tools and resources needed to be able to prevent suicide before it happens," Johnson said.

Early intervention is key, and knowing the signs and what to look for can help people reach out and aid those who may be struggling. The community can become a great asset in the fight against suicide, Johnson said.

University and college students face stresses from all directions, such as deciding between paying for school or paying for rent.

"We want to be able to help our students understand and learn how to cope with those feelings of being out of control and having nowhere to turn; to really help them to know there are people here who care about them. That they are loved, and that they are here for a reason," Johnson said.

In higher education it is especially important to provide those resources to help students because students then go out into the community and become those resources for other students, Johnson said.

UVU has a community mental health clinic on campus that is staffed by students who are in advanced standing and getting ready to graduate. These students are serving the community by providing free therapy to students while also getting their practicum hours in.

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