LIVE: Mental Health Help for Students

Reaching children in rural parts of our region, one day at a time.

It’s tough for some parents to imagine, but kids as young as elementary-school age can struggle with serious mental health issues. And in rural parts of North Dakota, accessing mental health help can be tough — with or without the stigma that still attaches to mental health problems.

That’s something United Way of Cass-Clay is trying to help. A pilot program that started at Northern Cass Public Schools put a mental health professional on-site at the school in Hunter, North Dakota one day a week, and what they found surprised them. It wasn’t the kids in their teens in the upper grades that were reaching out for help most often. It was the younger kids.

It turns out that’s a good thing, said North Cass Superintendent Cory Steiner. He sat down live in-studio with the Morning Show’s Emily Welker to talk about why mental health help is so critical for rural school children.

It’s so critical, in fact, that United Way is helping to fund the expansion of the program to one to two days a week for 6 different rural North Dakota schools. The services are provided by The Village and help kids gain coping tools for good mental health. Find out what’s still left to be done, what mental health help can do for your child, and how to know if your child might need these services, in this interview.

https://www.thevillagefamily.org/content/school-based-mental-health-services