The Glenview School District 34 Board of Education is considering using a texting-based service that allows students to communicate with counselors about anything from their stress levels to how to get mental health support.
At the Monday meeting, Andy Duran, the executive director for LEAD, or Linking Efforts Against Drugs, presented the board with information about the Text-A-Tip program, which provides students with immediate, anonymous access via text to licensed mental health professionals, he said.
The program was created in January 2014 in response to the suicides of three teens from New Trier Township, Duran said. Since then, the program has been offered in schools in Lake, McHenry and northern Cook counties, he said.
“It became very clear that students wanted to have a way to reach out in real time via means that they were comfortable with, in this case texting,” Duran said.
To use the program, students use a number and code specific to each school or district to text a licensed, clinical professional, he said. The code will be advertised throughout the community, he said, and students who use the text-a-tip feature can get help with a number of different problems or situations. Counselors from Child, Adolescent & Family Recovery Center respond to the messages within one to three minutes 93 percent of the time, according to a report presented to the board.
To date, 27 percent of the texts received are about depression or anxiety, 17 percent are about relationship conflicts, 12 percent are about substance abuse and 10 percent involve pressure and self harm or suicide, Duran said.
But not all teens who use the program are in a crisis “and that’s good,” Duran said. Some teens text in just to talk to someone about how to deal with the stress of doing a lot of homework after coming home late in the evening or after participating in extracurricular activities, he said.
“(The program) gives students an opportunity to reach out, get immediate response within minutes from a licensed person who is trained to work with adolescents and knows the resources available,” Duran said.
District 34 spokeswoman Jennifer Nimke said that if the board approves the program, it would be offered to middle school students. The District 34 board was asked to look into the program by District 225, which recently implemented the program at Glenbrook South and Glenbrook North high schools, according to Nimke and District 225 Supt. Michael Riggle.
District 225 decided to implement the service after parents raised concerns about possible drug and alcohol use on the two high school campuses, Riggle said. Officials at the district realized there were “gaps in our information” and that the schools didn’t always “have a good mechanism” to handle certain situations. At the District 225 Board of Education meeting in December 2016, the board approved the text-a-tip service, and it is “up and running” at both high schools, he said.
Once District 225 implemented the program, officials shared the service with superintendents from area elementary school districts and Glenview and Northbrook village managers, Riggle said. District 225 wanted to bring the program to the elementary school districts so that when those students come to District 225, they will be familiar with it, he said.
“It’s going to be a service that they’ll become used to, and they’ll see it as a resource,” Riggle said. “They don’t have to learn a new system and question that system when they enter into high school.”
It will cost District 225 $13,520 and District 34 $4,575 annually to provide Text-A-Tip to students, according to a District 225 report presented to the board in December 2016.
Duran said that about 25 percent to 30 percent of the program’s usage is by middle school students and that the number is increasing.
District 34 Interim Supt. Griff Powell said he was pleased that District 225 asked the feeder districts to consider using Text-A-Tip.
“To me, if it saves one life in several years, it’s worth the investment,” he said.
The board will vote on the program at its February meeting.
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