What role do parents play in promoting mental health?

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Anne: My childhood I don’t even know if I knew what the word “suicide” was, and they’ve talked about that as well. And it’s become so prevalent, and so they just felt like they could give back. And my vision of supporting the families doing it through schools and their vision to give back just was a really great marrying.

Kevin: According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, nearly 20% of youth in the United States ages 6 to 17 experience a mental health disorder. And suicide is the second leading cause of death among 10 to 14-year-olds. With so many youths struggling today, most parents are left feeling helpless and concerned. In fact, a report found that mental health is the greatest concern among parents. How can parents help their children who are struggling? Where can parents turn for support? And how can schools and parents work together to foster positive mental health in students? This is “What I Want to Know,” and today I’m joined by Anne Brown to find out.

Anne Brown is the President and CEO of the Cook Center for Human Connection. In her role, Anne delivers critical programs, partnerships, research, and policy to impact suicide prevention and mental health programs. With a father who suffered from alcoholism and bipolar disorder and a grandfather who died by suicide, Anne understands firsthand how mental illness and suicide not only affect the person suffering, but all of those around them. She joins us today to discuss how parents and caregivers play a crucial role in children’s mental health.

Anne, so let’s talk about your background. I know you were a teacher, as you indicated. Your career now in mental health has taken on a life of its own. What led you from being a teacher at some point to eventually getting to the place you are where you’re running the Cook Center, which is doing all this tremendous work in the area of mental health for children?

Anne: Yeah. Well, thanks, Kevin. It’s kind of an interesting story. I was a teacher. I’m the fourth of five generations of teachers. My great-grandmother taught in Portland. My grandmother taught in a one-room schoolhouse in Idaho. My mom taught for 33 years. I taught for about six years, and my daughter now teaches teachers how to use technology. And after being an inner-city elementary school teacher, I had the opportunity to move into EdTech. And so about 20 years of my career was in EdTech. And I had an opportunity to work a lot in literacy, but also in business development, marketing, product development, legislative lobbying, those kinds of things. So I had this pretty diverse career over 20 years, but all in the EdTech space working really closely with school superintendents around the country.

And then one day, I was driving home from work, very happily driving home at about 70 miles an hour up Parley’s Canyon in Utah. And I received a phone call from a gentleman who said, “There’s a new nonprofit being formed around mental health, and they need a leader and they need a leader like you.” And my first response was, “Well, I don’t do mental health. I do curriculum.”

And then I had this just flash just come over me about my life. And my earliest memory is being 3 years old and walking in the middle of the night with my mother and my two brothers. And we’re fleeing my father who was home drunk and had bipolar disorder. And so we were walking to an aunt’s house, and we didn’t want to start the car because we didn’t want to wake him up. And that wasn’t the first time that happened in my life. It wasn’t the last time that happened. My parents stayed together till he was in his 70s and past. And my father had actually gone into a mental hospital three years before I was born. That was his first visit into a mental hospital. And he had many more of those visits over my life.

And so as I’m driving up the canyon and thinking about my place in mental health, I realized that that was really probably all of the work I had done previous, all the teaching, all the business development, all the marketing, all of these things that I had done previously had really led me to this place to work on a problem that I never thought I’d have an opportunity to work on, but had been part of my life since before I was born, which is mental health. And what I realized is that mental health really affects the entire family not just the individual who’s struggling.

I talked about my father, but my brother is autistic, my son is autistic, and I have a grandfather who died by suicide. And all of those people require special care and special love. And I just know that the family and the connection that you make with the humans that are around you, i.e. human connection, really can be the difference maker on whether or not the person who’s struggling with mental health can get through that. All of that, as I’m driving, was just flashing into my mind, and I thought I do have a space in this mental health arena and it’s really around understanding the family.

And so when I met with the Cook family, and they were wanting to start this foundation, they could sort of see that same vision of working with the family. That was a big part of why they started the foundation too. They had had a young child in their neighborhood died by suicide when he was 11 years old. And Greg, who is our founder, he was asked to be with the mother because the father happened to be out of town when this all went on. And so he was there with the mother, and he just says, “Anne that changes you.”

And so when he and his wife had the financial resources to be able to give back in some way, they felt like mental health was really the arena where they wanted to support, because beyond that, which was a horrible experience, it was about 20 years ago, so it was very early in their marriage. They’ve also raised five children, and they say each of their five children have either had a colleague or a classmate, sorry, a classmate, either die by suicide or attempt suicide. Every one of their five children have known someone.

And if you think back to my childhood, I don’t even know if I knew what the word “suicide” was, and they’ve talked about that as well. And it’s become so prevalent. And so they just felt like they could give back. And my vision of supporting the families doing it through schools and their vision to give back just was a really great marrying of resources and talents and ideas to come together to create a really nice support system.

Kevin: What’s interesting, Anne, about your story, you’ve been a teacher, you were in EdTech for 20 years. You got that call, and you hadn’t really done anything in the mental health area specifically. It sounds to me that at that intersection of your life, your purpose was revealed.

Anne: I do feel like I was at an intersection where I could have an impact in an area that really needed impact. And just seeing the acceptance of mental health over the three or four years that I’ve been involved has been really fascinating to me, because when I first started in this work, the school systems were still sort of unclear of how to bring innovative solutions in. I mean, they all had psychologists and psychiatrists and counselors in their schools, which is fabulous. I mean, obviously, we want to have those. But everyone was talking about how there just weren’t enough. There weren’t enough of these people, and there weren’t enough people to support all of the need. And then we started into the pandemic, and the need has just risen higher and higher.

And so part of the interesting thing, too, is that as we were developing and creating solutions with all of these experts, we were also working with school leaders and saying, “Is this something that would be helpful to you?” And our school leaders kept saying, “Yes, and . . .” Yes, this would be helpful, and could you create a way that we could support our families more. So we have parent coaching. What we found out about parent coaching is that families are often not ready to go in and say to a school, “Here’s what I’m dealing with at home.” But if we could create a way that they could anonymously sign up to get these needs covered or have somebody to discuss these needs with, they would take advantage of it. And that was a direct request from a school superintendent in rural Montana.

We had another superintendent in South Dakota, who said, “Could you come and talk to our schools every month about a different mental health topic?” And so that became a service that we created. So we really . . . I mean, I do feel like we’re driven to this work and just have the wonderful opportunity to bring this help.

Kevin: Let me ask you this. You said, when you got the call, you started to work with the Cook Center and help shape things. Talk about the vision of the Cook Center.

Anne: So the original vision for the Cook Center and it still is, the first line of my job description is eradicate suicide. And they were very clear we’re working to eradicate all suicide. It’s not enough to say you’re not working towards 100% because we want to work to provide solutions to save everyone.

Through that, we also realized that there were supports along the way that we could . . . we needed more players on the field would be the better way to say it. We needed more people to help. And so how do we get more people helping? And so, initially, we engaged with big national organizations, with the National Suicide Prevention hotline, with NAMI, with AFSP, with our local suicide prevention organizations. And we just kept seeing this missing link, and the missing link was families and parents.

All of the services were really designed for the individual who is struggling, which again I think is . . . I mean, we want those services. Those are exceptionally valuable. But what we’re able to do is get people closer to the person who’s struggling be able to help that person. Because the thing I know, as a parent of a 26-year-old, is that when he was in school, I had a lot of support around me. As soon as he’s not in school, it’s my husband and my daughter and myself who care about him the most and provide the most support to him. And we will do that for the rest of our lives and try to set him up for what his needs are.

And every family who is struggling with someone with these needs really faces that same thing. And it really comes down to, I mean, we’re very specifically the Cook Center for Human Connection. Human connection is really the core of most of these needs, and it’s not to say that the person doesn’t have needs. But it’s when you see people who have gotten to the point of homelessness or drug addiction or just real struggle, I mean, deep, deep real struggle, often the humans around them have started to scatter or crack and are not able to help. By helping the people around them help, hopefully, we can continue that human connection and help continue to provide resources so that we can enhance that human connection.

Kevin: You know, when you talk about human connection, I’m struck by that. As you mentioned, over the past three, four years since COVID, this whole idea of all of us paying closer attention to the mental health and well-being of our children is becoming more front and center. And still, that recognition also allows us to understand and observe that suicide is on the rise among many young people. And one of the reasons why I wanted to know, Anne, candidly is this focus on families. Because when you talk about the mental health of children, you talk about the challenge of working with children who are considering suicide, it’s understandably a focus on that individual child. But the role that the ones closest to them can play is so significant. One thing I wanted to have you talk about was how you socialize parents around this idea of meeting their kid or their child who’s going through these struggles where they are, because that gulf is huge and unwittingly parents can help exacerbate it.

Anne: Yeah, and it’s a fine line. It’s a fine line. And I personally cross it sometimes, and I work in this every day. But it’s a fine line of support, acceptance, and drive. You’ve got to be able to kind of have all of those things. But being able to recognize when someone is struggling and have some resources and tools in your toolbox to be able to help them really makes a tremendous difference. Knowing those things can really help a family get through these difficult times. And when you don’t know some of those things, they can spiral and get worse, because we’ve had those things in our lives, right? And the longer someone is in a mental health state, the longer it is to get them out of it. And so we’re really working on the early intervention and prevention side of this, just things like, this isn’t something I’ve personally dealt with, but cutting is a big thing with girls.

Kevin: Yes, yes.

Anne: The research that we were doing originally was showing us that it’s about five years from when a child first starts to cut, before a family gets them help and support. And that’s often there are so many reasons for that. It’s disbelief. It’s shame. It’s stigma. It’s all of these things. It’s trying to love it away. It’s trying to thinking they’re seeking attention, as opposed what cutting really is about. If we can reduce the shame and stigma by providing them resources that they can access privately on demand and in their home, maybe we’re not going to wait five years. Our hope is that the parents start to understand it quickly, that they know when to ask for help, they know when to get help, they know what to say to their child. And we’ve had school counselors say, “Wow, your course on cutting is exactly what I would tell a parent.”

And so it’s that kind of thing. It’s getting that safe intervention place or prevention place where families can access our resources. And a lot of our resources we make available free to . . . Well, the resources are always free to the families, but we try to make them . . . a lot of it is available free to any school anywhere, so that they can access it and make it available to their families. But I think it’s important too that it doesn’t have to be accessed through . . . Our resource is called parentguidance.org. And it doesn’t have to be accessed through the school. Anyone anywhere can go to parentguidance.org. And if your child is cutting, there’s a course on cutting. If your child is dealing with anger or resentment or depression or anxiety, there’s courses that are directly to parents on these topics, that are not like here’s a YouTube course on anger. This is a course that’s directed to you’re a parent and you’re dealing with a child with anger, here’s how you can help them. It’s directed to you as a parent, to get you the resources you need so that you can support your child.

And I think that’s one of the things I’m most proud of with the work that we’re doing is that we’re helping parents be that first line of support for their child, because we know that, because of shame and stigma and all the other barriers, financial, all of those kinds of things, people don’t know where to go or how to ask. And then when they do ask, they’re often months away from services. So we can literally . . . They can go on their school website, click on parentguidance.org. Or they can go directly to parentguidance.org. And these resources are there and ready and waiting for them, and there’s no barrier to access.

Kevin: Back to the issue of parents noticing signs and I know there’s probably an exhaustive list. But you mentioned something I think is very important. One is that particularly let’s say cutting, for example, it could be going on for five years before parents seek resources. And if parents knew what signs to look for, they might approach the support a little differently, go through that list of either lecturing or whatever, coaching or being disappointed. What are some of the signs that parents should look for that suggest they should seek professional help?

And then the second part of that question is, I know that they can go to your website and sometimes to go to school counselors, what have you. But for working-class, low-income families it’s a different dynamic. If you’re a family of means, you probably will go seek help, I don’t know the data around this, sooner than others. And at least you would have a good idea of how to navigate that process and find someone maybe who could help, I would assume. But for a lot of working-class families it’s different. So talk about the signs and then how parents can kind of work through that irrespective of their socioeconomic background.

Anne: Yeah. Well, first and foremost is that even if you’re a parent of means, there are still barriers to this, and the barrier is access. It might be because of where you live. It might be you might live in a rural place where you’re hours away. You also might live in the middle of a metropolitan area, but you’re still months away from being able to get support.

Kevin: Interesting.

Anne: What I love about our resources is every child in this country has a right to an education. And so that means that every child in this country has someone who is over their well-being and their education, meaning their school superintendent, their principal, their school leader. And so by making these resources available through schools, we reduce those barriers to access. And so when we talk about low-income, rural, even high income and shame, we’ve actually had a parent one time, we do it on our mental health series, parents have the ability to anonymously interact. And we had a mom say, “My daughter is a cheerleader, and she’s cutting, but I can’t let people know because she’s a cheerleader.”

And so that’s an interesting thing for me in mental health. And it’s something that I’ve really discovered as I’ve been working in this mental health space, is that it really crosses, the need crosses all socioeconomics, all urban, suburban, rural, all types of school systems. The need is there for everyone. And so then, going back to everyone has this right to education, schools are the place where we can really support kids the most in this because that’s where they all are.

So with our services, they’re either free to the schools, or the schools pay for them, pay for some of the services that require one-on-one coaching, a coach with a family. Or a person who is running our mental health series, there’s a charge for that. We’re a nonprofit. We are a true nonprofit. We’re just trying to make this as economical as possible so that every family can access this through their schools.

But by having the schools provide it and provide the fees for this, then the families never have to pay for it. And so that’s where we break down the barriers because every child has a right to education. Not every child has a right to health care. But by having a right to education, if we provide these services through the school system and we make them scalable in a way that any family in a school system can access it, then we break down those barriers.

Kevin: Anne, when you talk about say checking the box and things that schools can do to make sure that they’re providing services, needed services to children and potentially families in need, do you have any examples of schools that do that?

Anne: Oh, I do. We’re working with over 3,000 schools across the country right now. Stride schools in particular, they do national monthly Mental Health Series. So every month there’s a topic that’s chosen for families to be able to access and be part of the monthly mental health discussion. Also, the leaders of the Stride schools this next year will have an opportunity to choose coaching, parent coaching as one of the services that they provide in their schools. So we really hope that we can support a lot of the Stride families with school coaching or with parent coaching in their schools.

We also work with Clark County School District, which is the fifth biggest in the country. So any family in Las Vegas or in the Las Vegas area, they can access parent guidance on their school websites. There’s monthly Mental Health Series. There’s actually weekly Mental Health Series in Clark County. And there’s also parent coaching available for any family. But again, that’s across the country, not just in those two. Those are just two great examples of partners that are really helping to support the families in their schools with these mental health resources.

Kevin: Yeah, I love that. And I think that makes a lot of sense. And I love the idea that you’re working with schools to make that happen. So Anne, I have one last question. This is what I really want to know, and it really comes down to this sort of notion of preventive medicine. There’s no way to fully anticipate when some of these mental health challenges may arise. But what could schools and parents do to better prepare families for a challenge that they may face in this area down the road? Oftentimes, schools will do videos or they have orientation. Is there something that you, if you could wave a magic wand, would have every school consider doing to sort of pave the way to have parents and families be able to access services should that need arise?

Anne: Yeah, I think of it like an MTSS pyramid. So it’s all, some, and few. So parentguidance.org is available for all families anywhere, every school. Anyone can access it. No cost to anyone, not to the school, not to the families, nothing. That’s our Cook Center gift to the world. So that’s the top of the inverted pyramid, right, is parentguidance.org. That’s for all.

Some families are going to need access to information that’s maybe a little more in depth, and that’s our monthly Mental Health Series. And if I could have every school . . . If every school in this country or every district in this country was providing a monthly mental health discussion with their families or for their families, we’re breaking down stigma. We’re providing education. Once we do those mental health series, we make them available to the school so that they can library them and create a library of information. So if someone, maybe they’re not . . . maybe a family is not dealing with cutting this month, but maybe six months from now they are, and they could go back to this library and say, “Oh, there’s information on that. I’m going to watch that.”

And then for those few families that are really, really struggling, being able to give them access to a coach in 24 to 48 hours, as opposed to 3 to 6 months, so that they’ve got someone that they can talk to. And we’re not replacing therapy. We’re not trying to do that at all. But we’re trying to fill that gap while someone is waiting for therapy. And maybe, maybe our hope is that by providing these services, we take some of the pressure off of the therapy system because maybe some people could get through with just the coaching that we’re providing. And so then when we take the pressure off those systems, when someone needs to see a psychiatrist or a psychologist or a therapist, they don’t have to wait three to six months. They can get into them in a week or two weeks. And so instead of being a stopgap for three to six months, we’re a stopgap for that.

So my first hope is that every school in America has the Parent Guidance Medallion on their website. And that’s what we’re working towards. We work closely with you guys. We work closely with the Superintendents Association. We fund the mental health cohort for superintendents around the country. And it’s all about getting that resource on every school website in the country and making that available at no cost to anyone anywhere.

But then, by having the Mental Health Series, that breaks down the stigma. It provides education. It gives people a place that they can go and know that they’re not alone, because that’s a big part of the mental health struggles for a family too, is that you think you’re the only ones dealing with this and the reality is you’re not.

And two things happen. When a school puts out an announcement that they’re going to deal with helping to de-escalate conflict, right, like maybe that’s your mental health series this month is about de-escalation of conflict. And maybe you’re living in a house that’s really conflicted, and you think I need to keep that really quiet. When you see that, you might think, “Oh, I must not be the only one. I’m not the only family dealing with conflict in my home. I’m not the only family dealing with cutting. I’m not the only family dealing with anger issues.” It makes them realize that they can ask for help and they can talk about their needs. So that’s our next step.

And then having that resource of coaching available that for any district that’s got coaching available, in 24 hours we can get them a coach. And they’ll have somebody that’s talking to them about their needs one-on-one up to half an hour a week, for as long as they need it. And we find some families need it for a month and some families need it for a year. And that’s okay. And we’ve been able to scale in a way that makes that available.

Kevin: Well said. I could not agree with you more. And I mean, the message I’m hearing and I will share with school leaders out there, this is an area where you can be proactive. The idea of having regular monthly discussions around this or presentations around these issues, also is not only just sharing the information, but allowing for the how to deal with some of these circumstances, I think is priceless.

Anne Brown, I certainly appreciate you taking the time to join us. And thanks again for all you do on behalf of our children. We appreciate it here on “What I Want to Know.”

Anne: Thank you so much for having us.

Kevin: Thanks for listening to “What I Want to Know.” Be sure to follow and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app so you can explore other episodes and dive into our discussions on the future of education. And write a review of the show. I also encourage you to join the conversation and let me know what you want to know using #WIWTK on social media. That’s #WIWTK.

For more information on Stride and online education, visit stridelearning.com. I’m your host Kevin P. Chavous. Thank you for joining “What I Want to Know.”