Six schools in El Paso County School District 49 are participating in a public awareness campaign called Below the Surface, in coordination with NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness), Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners and Colorado Crisis Services.The D 49 schools include Patriot High School, Falcon High School, Vista Ridge High School, Banning Lewis Preparatory Academy, Springs Studio for Academic Excellence and Sand Creek High School.Kirk Woundy, communications and grants manager for NAMI-Colorado Springs, said the campaign aims to create public awareness about a crisis text line available to adolescents who need emotional support but do not know where to turn.ìWe are really trying to tell people about a service that is already available that NAMI does not provide on its own,î Woundy said. ìThe text line is a state-run service run by Colorado Crisis Services, which Gov. John Hickenlooper championed after the Aurora theater shooting to strengthen mental health services across the state.îFrom NAMIís point of view, Woundy said the text line provides a resource at the state level that meets teens where they are most comfortable communicating, which is texting. ìWe went after grant funding to create a public awareness campaign around the crisis text line, partnered with Design Rangers (a Colorado Springs design firm) and an eight-student focus group; and came up with something that ended up being this (Below the Surface) campaign,î he said.The Below the Surface campaign started in August 2017, and Woundy said it began with two pilot schools: Atlas Preparatory School in Harrison School District 2 and Manitou Springs High School in Manitou Springs School District 14. Throughout the course of the 2017-2018 academic year, NAMI presented the campaign throughout the county, and wound up picking up another 14 schools, he said.The crisis text line can be reached by texting ìTALKî to 38255. The line is available 24/7 and manned by master-level counselors through Rocky Mountain Crisis Partners, Woundy said. The service does not require insurance and is confidential, unless there is an imminent safety risk; thus, students know that what they share with the crisis text line will not be passed on to parents or local authorities, he said.According to RMCP, the goal of the crisis text line is ìto offer in-the-moment support and lay the foundation for counseling and effective conversations with parents.îKim Boyd, director of community care for D 49, said when she heard that NAMI was ready to expand to other schools, she and her team talked to the counseling teams at the district high school campuses and showed them some of the campaign materials. ìThey were all excited about it (joining the campaign) and said, ëLetís do it,íî she said. ìOnce the counseling staff was on board, we went to the principals to tell them that the counselors liked the idea. We wanted to make sure it was something they all wanted to do.îBoyd said a major reason she supports the campaign is that research indicates students reporting mental health crises are not initially talking to school counselors; students often go to a security officer, a teacher or coach and then to a counselor.ìThis is not just about suicide,î she said. ìIt is about anything ó if you are stressed about a test, stressed about your best friend who stabbed you in the back, mad at your mom ó anything that you just feel you need someone to talk to. Sometimes, kids do not want to talk to their friends about things because they do not want to be judged.îBy providing campaign materials to the schools, which Boyd said she hopes to do with additional schools in D 49 in the near future, teachers have reference materials for supporting their students. ìIt allows teachers to open up those conversations,î she said. ìSometimes, they cannot have that conversation with the student and sometimes they are afraid to start those conversations and do not know what to do otherwise.îWoundy said NAMI is proud of the campaign because local teens had a say in shaping it. The youth participants provided the insight into creating messages that would appeal to their peers. ìThey explained issues they are facing and what they are watching their friends face,î he said.Boyd said D 49 is following that same formula and asking for the various student organizations to consider getting involved and endorsing the campaign.ìWe want to make sure the students know why we are doing what we are doing and have a say in it,î Boyd said.
