Counselors say student depression is on the rise

The COVID-19 pandemic has made Tuolumne County students more anxious, more depressed and put them at a higher risk of suicidal thinking a crisis counselor at Summerville High School announced to the Board of Education this week.

“One of the things that we note a lot when the rhythm of life is disturbed, as it is with school children, you see depression,” Kevin Wychopen, Summerville High School counselor, told The Union Democrat. “Oftentimes, that can turn into an ‘I don’t know what to do.’ When you have an increase in depression, you also have an increase in severe depression.”

According to the data accrued by the district, there were approximately 100 referrals for counseling this school year thus far compared to 70 in the entire previous school year, now a 43% increase.

Referrals are typically made by students, teachers or parents with concerns about a student’s thoughts or behaviors, with varying levels of severity.

There have been 13 suicide assessments administered this school year so far versus six in the last school year total, a 117% increase.

Underlying symptoms include anxiety, depression, substance use or abuse, or self-harm. And though these have always been teen issues within and beyond Tuolumne County, local counselors are seeing these symptoms arise more frequently out of the uncertainty of remote-learning challenges.

“We just have to figure out how to deal with these stresses and behaviors,” Wychopen said. “Another issue is we don’t have as much control over this. It’s invisible. We can’t see it. All we can do is wear a mask and not read other people’s facial expressions. It’s just a completely different world for most Americans.”

According to a 2019-20 Summerville Union High School District report on student health, 27 percent of ninth graders and 26 percent of 11th graders seriously considered suicide in the previous year.

Suicidal thoughts at the school appear to disproportionately affect Hispanic or Latino and mixed-race students at a slightly higher rate than white students.

In both age groups, suicidal thoughts appear to be more prevalent in girls than in boys in the district.

The newest data presented by Wychopen prompted voices of concern during the Summerville Union High School District Board of Education meeting on Wednesday.

“One of the major concerns we have as the crisis counselors at the school is preventing suicides, because that’s a permanent solution that cant be undone,” Wychopen explained to the board. “That’s one of things we focus on regularly, because it’s such an important issue.”

“I’m very concerned about the numbers,” said board member Bret Taylor, who speculated the number of suicidal assessments could swell to even higher values before the year is over.

“I cannot predict what’s going to happen, but it’s not beyond our ability to handle it,” Wychopen said.

According to county community health records, Tuolumne County’s fiveyear average suicide rate is 18.5 per 100,000 people, which is commensurate with other rural counties in the state. The county documents note also that rural counties have a higher rate of suicide when compared with state or urban areas, though the smaller population size can cause rates to fluctuate.

The data collected by the county indicates that the majority of reported suicides are middle-aged men. Between 2007 and 2015, 84 suicides were men and 19 were female. During that same time, 39.2% of suicides were committed by people between the ages of 20 and 49.

Children and teens represented 2.9% of all reported suicides in the county for those years.

Wychopen, who is 73, said he does only Zoom or phone call referrals with students and only three days a week during the COVID-19 crisis because of his age and the risk to his wife.

His colleague, Monique Nelson, works five days a week on the campus with the reopening.

One of the most direct solutions to dealing with teen depression and suicidal thoughts is to simply address it in a rational, calm and compassionate way, Wychopen said.

“You’re never going to make someone commit suicide by asking about it,” he said.

By surmounting the taboo of the act and discussing it, the allure is sometimes dispelled. Oftentimes, students just need an outlet to explain the feelings or emotions that are leading them to consider suicide as an option.

As a common practice, Wychopen provides his cell phone number to each of the students referred to him.

“It’s a challenging topic to talk about suicide, and that’s why I think I need to be respectful, but not be tentative about it,” he said.

Wychopen said referrals typically lead to a phone call, Zoom meeting, or in typical times, an office meeting. If there is a legitimate threat, the student may have a suicide assessment done, which typically involves an immediate meeting requested with parents and a referral to Tuolumne County Behavioral Health, which has its own crisisintervention program.

But the conditions for treating students are not always the same, said Stacy Kroeze, head of the counseling department at Sonora High School.

Though Summerville High School is operating on an in-person education model, Sonora High School recently voted to retract its hybrid education model and revert back to distance learning only.

“What our department is doing this year is focusing on our prevention efforts,” she said. “We’re trying to provide our kids support in a distance learning model. Even though our school is closed, we are open to mental health services face to face.”

There are three counselors at Sonora High School, and each keeps confidential notes about their referrals and cases, Kroeze said.

Under the circumstances, counselors must be adaptable to reaching students through alternative measures in order to provide care, Kroeze said. Simply returning them to all on-campus learning won’t eliminate teen depression or suicidal ideation, or supersede any traumas that have developed already during the COVID-19 crisis.

“We are very careful. We don’t want to in any way say that someone’s concerns about getting COVID or having significant health issues or possibly dying from COVID is less than our concerns for students’ mental health,” Kroeze said. “We are not looking to go against any decisions that our school has made, but we definitely want our concerns about student mental health to be heard.”

On a larger educational level, the counseling department has pushed training sessions for support staff like bus drivers and cafeteria workers to understand more about teen mental health and developed an online “self-care space” with links to the San Diego Zoo and other community resources.

“We are having to come up with different strategies and tactics to deal with these and help students connect in a healthy way,” Kroeze said