FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 19, 2011

NEW YORK – The TeenScreen National Center for Mental Health Checkups at Columbia University is offering new resources for mental health screening programs in schools and communities online for the first time. Launched nearly 10 years ago, there are currently more than 2,000 TeenScreen sites in 46 states nationwide.

Making the free, evidence-based materials available online will make it easier for schools to access the latest version of these newly updated resources and will also enable more schools to participate in the program.

“More than 38,000 young people in Nevada suffer from serious mental illness with significant impairment,” said Senator Harry Reid (D-NV). “Adolescents throughout our state could greatly benefit from mental health checkups that identify teens at-risk before they become disabled or die by suicide.”

Barbara Ludwig, RN, who has been coordinating TeenScreen programs in Nevada since 2001, pointed out that research shows that nearly half of all mental disorders start by age 14. “School-based screening for mental illness is essential to the well-being of adolescents at-risk,” she said. “Too many young people and their parents believe that feelings of depression or anxiety are normal teen behavior. Screening can identify youth for whom those feelings are symptoms of illness, allowing us to offer the students and their families appropriate support.”

After a death by suicide of a student at his high school, Dan Buikema, director of guidance at Faith Lutheran Jr./Sr. High Schools, in Las Vegas talked to Barbara Ludwig about beginning a TeenScreen program. “We knew that we had to take a different approach to identifying students at-risk,” he said. “Screening not only was very effective in identifying students who needed referral to mental health professionals, but it also opened a dialogue about suicide. Shortly after the screening, three students were brought to my office by their friends who were concerned about them.”

Screening Adolescents Helps Reduce the Risks of Untreated Mental Illness

As with other physical illnesses, screening for mental illness in adolescence increases the likelihood that it will be identified in early, easier-to-treat stages. Left untreated, mental illness in adolescents can lead to drug and alcohol abuse, violence, school failure, criminal involvement, and can derail social/life development. Approximately 50 percent of students age 14 and older that suffer from serious mental illness drop out of high school; this is the highest rate of any disability group. Many youth with unidentified and untreated mental illness end up in jails and prisons: 65 percent of boys and 75 percent of girls in juvenile detention suffer from mental illness. Most tragically, untreated mental illness is a significant risk factor for teen suicide, which is a major public health problem throughout the United States.

In Nevada, suicide is the second leading cause of death (according to a report, “Injury in Nevada” published in 2010 by the Nevada state Health Division). In a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report: Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance, Nevada high school students reported in 2009 that within the previous 12-month period, nearly one in three felt sad and hopeless enough over a two-week period to halt usual activity, nearly one in five had thought seriously about suicide, and one in ten had attempted suicide.

The TeenScreen National Center for Mental Health Checkups at Columbia University is a non-profit initiative and national policy center devoted to increasing youth access to regular mental health checkups. TeenScreen is listed in the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices and the Best Practices Registry for Suicide Prevention.

To learn more about the Schools and Communities program and download the new materials, please visit: http://www.teenscreen.org/programs/schools-communities

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To arrange an interview with Barbara Ludwig or Dan Buikema or TeenScreen Program leadership, please contact: Farrell Fitch at 781-431-6166 or fitchfa@childpsych.columbia.edu.