U of A mental health pilot project proves successful with Red Deer students

A University of Alberta pilot program designed to promote mental health skills with Red Deer students has been found in a new study to significantly lessen cases of depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts.

The EMPATHY (Empowering a Multimodal Pathway Towards Healthy Youth) program ran in Red Deer Public Schools from 2013 to 2015 and was offered to more than 6,000 youth in grades six through 12.

The follow-up study was conducted 15 months after the program ended. It shows the number of students with suicidal thoughts dropped from 4.4 per cent to 2.8 per cent. Anxiety and depression among students also decreased along with the incidences of self-harm and drug and alcohol abuse.

“The world is more complicated and we see the kids struggling with mental health issues and it is presenting itself more often,” said Stu Henry, Superintendent – Red Deer Public Schools. “At the schools we were a little helpless to deal with that so this (EMPATHY) gave us a way to deal with that head on.”

With the permission of parents, EMPATHY employed the use of online interventions with therapists to offer mental health support to students.

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“It’s made me a more positive person. It’s helped me feel better,” says Maryam Mohammed, a Grade 9 student at Hunting Hills High School who took part in the pilot project. “It allows me to communicate effectively with others so that I’m not as shy as I used to be.”

Henry added that having mental health therapists or mental health tool kits available at the middle school level provides the students the necessary coping skills to enter in to their high school years.

“For EMPATHY we did universal screening of all students grade six to twelve, and then all grade six to eight students received the lessons. If they presented as having severe needs in middle or high school then we followed through with intervention for them too,” said Henry.

He added that even though the project ended in 2015, there was no notable increase in the incidences of anxiety, depression or suicidal thoughts among students. Henry credits that to the early intervention of the EMPATHY project and the longevity of the skills the students were taught during that time.

The EMPATHY project helped Red Deer Public Schools secured funding to add several mental health therapists for the 2017-2018 school year, doing both proactive work and interventions with the highest need students and their families.

“We have fantastic staff and counsellors that take care of our kids but there are some needs that sometimes we need outside help with,” said Henry.

Mohammed says she is glad to see the EMPATHY program has had such a positive impact overall.

“I feel like all children deserve to know what they’re supposed to be learning. Life situations they are going to be going through or have already gone through and how they should behave and react to that kind of situation.”