Editor’s note: Resources for any person who is feeling depressed, troubled or suicidal are listed at the bottom of this article.
Gunn High School sophomore Vin Bhat has already taken two years of the school’s social emotional learning course, which is meant to prepare students for the future by helping them regulate their emotions.
The class is part of an effort that the Palo Alto Unified School District launched nearly a decade ago, as school and city officials broadened their efforts to address youth mental health in the aftermath of two suicide clusters involving local teenagers. The classes focus on instilling qualities such as trust, empathy and resilience.
Next year, he will continue taking the mandatory course – participating in group activities and listening to health and wellness lectures – with the same classmates, until he graduates.
School officials often boast about the multitude of district programs that address mental health. Still, as issues persist among students in a city known for its innovation and academic rigor, some students say on-campus resources are not enough.
The district is well-intentioned, Bhat said, but it struggles to properly execute its goals.
“Anything attached to school is going to be inherently stressful,” said Bhat, who serves on the Palo Alto Youth Council, an advisory body made up of local students.
To address this concern, the city has been trying to expand services focusing on teen mental health, a topic that then-Mayor Greer Stone made a personal priority last year. Palo Alto has been offering teenagers free rides on Palo Alto Link, the city’s rideshare system, to youth-centered destinations like the community center at Mitchell Park. The city is also now in the process of adding a teen center to a city-owned building on Bryant Street as part of its effort to create more “third spaces” for youth looking for places to hang out when not at home or school.
“Despite both agencies’ best intentions and efforts, these tragedies continue to occur,” said Stone at a March 17 City Council meeting. “I think for far too long, our agencies have really addressed this crisis mostly in our own silos and it clearly isn’t working. As far as I’m concerned, the health and safety of our kids is all of our responsibilities, 24/7.”
One such effort, however, has exposed a gap between the district and the city. Last year, Stone announced during his “State of the City” speech that he has been in talks with the Jed Foundation, a national nonprofit dedicated to emotional wellness and youth suicide prevention, about bringing its services to Palo Alto. As mayor, he formed a task force on mental health that included local youth as well as city and school officials. Its recommendations included bringing Jed onboard.
Earlier this month, the city of Palo Alto and the Palo Alto Unified School District heard a three-way collaboration proposal from the Jed Foundation.
But while Stone is eager to enter the partnership, district officials signaled that they are not ready. On staff recommendation, Palo Alto school board members deferred on April 1 the offer to collaborate with the city and national nonprofit, opting instead to gather more data and further “engage” with the community.
“We want to enter any partnership with a clear understanding of what we need and how an external group can help us move the work forward,” wrote Yolanda Conaway, assistant superintendent of equity and student affairs, in a message to this publication.
“Timing and preparation matter. This pause isn’t a no—it’s a not yet. We want to ensure we’re truly ready to act on recommendations and that any external input complements the systems we’re already building.”
Superintendent Don Austin declined to comment on staff’s position on the Jed Foundation proposal but highlighted the district’s existing services, which include in-house psychologists, state-of-the-art wellness centers and a multi-tiered counseling referral system. Addressing mental health is also part of the district’s “promise,” or mission statement.
“PAUSD has the most robust mental health services in the entire state,” Austin said in a message to this publication.
School Board President Shana Segal, who was part of Stone’s mental health task force, was more open to the partnership. She and Stone had discussed a more collaborative approach to youth health, including the Jed partnership, she said.
While the school district already spends $24 million on mental health services, collaboration could help ensure the efficacy of those programs, not simply replace them, Segal said. According to Jed Foundation, its contract with Palo Alto would total $124,000, while the district would be expected to pay about $67,258 for the nonprofit’s services.
This pause isn’t a no—it’s a not yet.
Yolanda Conaway,
assistant superintendent of equity and student affairs, pausd
During the April 1 City/School Liaison Committee meeting, the Jed Foundation pitched its first-ever plan to work with a city and school district concurrently to implement its district mental health initiative – a two-year, four-phase plan that assesses current mental health programs, helps schools plan on improvements, implement them then evaluate and sustain what works best.
The nonprofit operates under seven different domains, or a roadmap, that aims to ensure mental health programs develop resilience skills, limit “lethal means,” ensure crisis policies are in place, ensure quality programs are accessible, reduce shame, create systems to recognize struggling students and promote social connectedness, which could also help improve attendance and exclusionary discipline.
“We are a thought partner… a consultant behind the scenes,” said Jed Foundation’s Senior Vice President Tony Walker, noting that at the end of the day district leaders get to drive what schools will prioritize.
The Jed Foundation was founded by Phil and Donna Satow after their son committed suicide. Over two decades later, the nonprofit has become a leader in suicide prevention and it has a track record of reducing suicide attempts by 25% at the schools it works with. Each of its panel members who presented at the Palo Alto meeting have close relationships with the subject as longtime youth psychologists, and as people who have personally dealt with suicide loss.
Kurt Michael, a psychologist and senior director for the Jed Foundation, specializes in postvention, a type of support for communities that have faced suicide loss. In reviewing past reports and news articles, Michael said, he realizes how far back Palo Alto’s mental health crisis dates, and believes the Jed Foundation can help the community process those losses.
“There’s a big section in our [city] proposal on trying to be more systematic in reducing access to lethal means and I think we would have the ability to help train folks for example in Palo Alto on how to implement interventions,” he said.
Not everyone, however, jumped at the chance to partner with the foundation. During public comment, leaders from local suicide-prevention nonprofit Project Safety Net joined district staff in arguing that an agreement with the Jed Foundation would be premature.
The existing city, school partnerships with organizations like Project Safety Net, which consists of mental health experts, nonprofit leaders, clinicians and staff from the city and the school district, and allcove are already strong, Conaway said at the meeting.
Steven Lee, a former member of the city’s Human Relations Commission who serves on Project Safety Net board, urged the city to “pause this effort,” “take a breath” and perform more community outreach.
“Project Safety Net and our coalition of nonprofit service providers was not aware of this initiative and we want to be involved with this process,” Lee said.
The goal, Lee said, is to figure out the best way to collaborate with the Jed Foundation. Some of the initiatives that the foundation is proposing are things that Project Safety Net is already working on, he said.
Conaway similarly suggested that the partnership with isn’t ready for advancement.
If this partnership can prevent even one death, it’s worth it.”
greer stone, palo alto city council member
“I would agree with some of the speakers that I’ve heard about going to the table before we get to step two, which is, ‘Who do we bring in from the outside to help us?’” Conaway said, suggesting that the district expand the school district’s existing mental health and wellness committee first.
Greer and councilmember George Lu disagreed, maintaining that a new organization could help the district and city recognize their shortcomings, while still working with local organizations.
“I don’t think any of us should be viewing this as an outside organization coming in to tell us what we’re doing wrong. I think there’s so much we do right … but there’s always gaps,” Stone said.
Segal echoed the city council members and suggested that the Jed Foundation can help to ensure that the district is maximizing its relationships with community resources. Conaway maintained it was not the right time, and that the district would be able to gather its own evaluation data.
As the discussion came to a close, Segal and Alison Kamhi sided with school staff, and deferred the partnership with the foundation.
After the meeting, Stone expressed frustrations with the district’s approach.
“District administration faced an opportunity to be able to take meaningful, collaborative action on one of our community’s most urgent and long standing crises,” he said in an interview with this publication. “They chose, instead, to delay progress by deferring the conversation to a committee, effectively kicking the can down the road.”
While the district has made remarkable strides in providing mental health services, Stone said, there’s more work to do.
“The reality is that we’re still losing young people to suicide,” he said. “And in my opinion, in my heart, if this partnership can prevent even one death, it’s worth it.”
Some Palo Alto parents also expressed disappointment with the decision to defer the partnership at the Tuesday meeting of the school board.
“PAUSD had a suicide this year and last year and we don’t want another next year, so time is of the essence,” parent Allyson Rosen said at the meeting. “The City/School Liaison Committee that discussed consulting with the Jed Foundation represents a tremendous opportunity to improve suicide prevention.”
Providing support
District officials maintain that they are already adapting their programs to meet student needs, notably changing its support model to hire in-house therapists and counselors.
“We have the support in place,” Conaway said at a school board meeting on March 11. “Our discussion has been about, ‘How do we make sure that students have equal access to these supports and that we reduce the stigma to an extent that students feel comfortable accessing these services?’”
Currently, the district operates a tiered model. Any student can access mental health support in tier one, while students who need more advanced support can receive referrals to access the higher tiers of services. Each school is equipped with at least one licensed therapist. There are 15 therapists who are dedicated to students who have disabilities and 20 full-time psychologists across the district.
Each Palo Alto middle school and high school is also equipped with a wellness center, where students can receive counseling, assessment or just relax, and the district is piloting two new centers at elementary schools. Each high school has a wellness coordinator, a wellness center staff member and three mental health and wellness associates, according to a district presentation.
According to district-wide data, elementary students were more likely to be referred to therapy for behavioral situations and peer relationships, while high school students were more likely to be referred for academic stress and familial concerns. Academic stress accounts for about 50% of high school student referrals for therapy, according to the district.
While some parents took issue with the notion that academic rigor could diminish mental health, other parents spoke up at a recent meeting for an increase in support. Mare Lucas, a district parent who had lost a son to suicide, said stressful campus-life and academic pressure often trump student health in district.
“I need you to think outside the box,” she said at the March 11 meeting. “We brag all day that our first and middle name is innovation, but if we’re doing what we did yesterday and what we did two years ago, if we’re not doing something innovative and new then we’re not solving the problem.”
District staff said they were confident in PAUSD’s range of services and constant research into how those services operate, Conaway said at the March meeting, but the district is aware that some students who may need support still don’t feel comfortable visiting wellness centers or asking for help.
Some students say that’s because school-provided services can’t account for all their needs.
The youth council, which is composed of nearly 30 high school students across six Palo Alto high schools, last year collected its own mental health data. In a survey of 227 students, 50% of youth said they struggle with mental health, but only 27% said they receive help. Furthermore, 68% of those students said they didn’t know about city mental health resources and 37% said they use their school-sponsored resources.
At the end of the day, getting help on campus can feel awkward or stressful, said Gunn High school student Bhat. While Bhat said he recognizes his school’s effort to address mental health issues, it can often feel “forced,” leading students to feel isolated from resources when they need them most.
Castilleja senior and youth council President Natya Chandrasekar echoed his observation in an interview with this publication.
“It’s so important that Palo Alto already provides resources outside of school for mental health,” Chandrasekar said. “We have the allcove center, which is such an incredible resource that I know many students use, and I think that’s a wonderful space, because it isn’t attached to something that stresses students out.”
Help is available:
Any person who is feeling depressed, troubled or suicidal can call 988, the mental health crisis hotline, to speak with a crisis counselor. In Santa Clara County, interpretation is available in 200 languages. Spanish speakers can also call 888-628-9454. People can reach trained counselors at Crisis Text Line by texting RENEW to 741741.
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