Mental health is a difficult topic to discuss, especially with kids.
Today, Hope Means Nevada held their fourth statewide Youth Mental Health Discussion for the 2023-2024 school year.
"The meeting is for all the mental health nonprofits in the state of Nevada to meet and share our ideas and collaborate on different things that are going to happen within the next quarter in Nevada and what happened in the last quarter in Nevada," said Sydney Menante, Co-Chair for the Hope Means Nevada's Teen Committee.
One positive the nonprofit say they are seeing is the use of more youth mental health summits.
"It's a nice way for students to speak their voices into creating change within the high schools within Nevada, and a lot of people come to it and listen to what people have to say and that's where a lot of ideas get sparked," Menante said.
Menante says the Nevada Office of Suicide Prevention has been working on post-suicide tool kits.
Those tools will help students deal with the trauma after someone at their school commits suicide.
At her school, Menante says two kids passed away within a year.
She says she felt like the crisis response team could have done more to help kids get through those events.
She and other students were able to give feedback to the team to improve the response.
There are ways the nonprofits are trying implement some changes to help de-stigmatize mental health in schools.
"We've started working on a curriculum," Menante said. "I know Children's Cabinet has and we are trying to implement it into Washoe County School District to build classes to teach kids mental health if they want to become youth mental health ambassadors in their school."
Later this week, both Hope Means Nevada and The Children's Cabinet are hosting one thousand kids at the Discovery Museum.
They'll be providing education on mental health issues and those tickets are completely sold out.
For Menante, being a voice on this topic comes from past experiences.
"I decided to get into this industry after my childhood best friend took his own life my freshman year," she said.
She has a message for those who fighting their own battle at this moment.
"You just need to find one reason to live your life," Menante said. "At the end of the day and no matter what, you're going to be ok and right now going through what you're going through, it might not seem to be worth living, but as someone who's experienced it, at the end of the day you're going to be so happy that you continued to choose fighting through life."
Remember, if you are struggling and having thoughts of suicide, the national, 24/7 hotline is 988.
There's always someone available to talk to at that line.
