Chandler — Some of Chandler’s students are taking matters into their own hands after several students committed suicide at the end of last school year.
Liana Alexander and her friends created the Arizona Student Group for Mental Health, which officially became a nonprofit in early August. According to her, the group works to improve mental health resources in schools and cities.
“We could see our peers and ourselves struggling. It seemed like nobody was, so we wanted to do something about it,” Alexander said of the nonprofit. He told ABC15 about starting the group.
Alexander herself has struggled with mental health and had to miss a semester from public school because of her mental health.
They want to use the National Suicide Prevention Hotline 988 to normalize, make the resource more accessible to other students, and make it part of their daily lives.
She believes her nonprofit is different from other nonprofits that support mental health resources because it’s student-led.
“Because we’ve been through it, we have a different perspective than adults. When it comes to trying to resolve teen mental health, no one is better than a teenager,” she said. rice field.
She knows she needs adult help, but it’s easier to talk to other students, she says.
“I think it’s because students understand a lot more than adults,” she said. And sometimes we just need to vent…we just need to talk about what’s going on, we need to understand what we’re feeling, and adults are always jumping in. I will try to fix it.”
Another member of the group, sophomore Kailani Higgins, says she joined the nonprofit because she felt motivated to help others struggling with mental health. She also went through a mental health crisis and eventually needed help.
“I think it’s important for students to be able to voice their needs and share their perspectives with people, rather than letting someone else say it or arbitrarily dictate what they want to say.” she said.
During National Suicide Prevention Week, the group wrote messages of encouragement in chalk on sidewalks, along with suicide prevention lifeline numbers. They also held a candlelit memorial service over the weekend to remember the lives lost to suicide.
Balancing academics and starting a nonprofit, Alexander hopes her group’s hard work will save lives.
“It’s 100% worth the work. The lost lives of the students could still be here if someone had done something sooner,” she said.
Chandler Unified School District says it is not affiliated with nonprofits. A school district spokesperson said the school added several new positions this year to increase access to mental health needs. The school district is in the process of adding a lifeline number to the student’s girlfriend’s ID and adding it to the staff ID. The community leader also conducts “Teen Mental Health First Aid” or her children over the age of 15 with parental approval.
If you feel suicidal or need help, you are not alone. Call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
