In recent years, at least five Chandler Unified School District students have committed suicide. In one month in 2022, three teenagers took their lives in the span of a few weeks. It shook the school and the community, and came as the country faces a teen mental health crisis. So the school board took action.
They used federal COVID-19 money to create The Hope Institute, a first-of-its-kind suicide treatment center they opened on the Perry High School campus last year. They offer a short-term, six-week treatment specifically aimed at suicidality, which goes beyond the type of stabilization a patient typically receives in the hospital.
Lindsay Taylor, clinical director of The Hope Institute, spoke more about the program and how her first year with The Show has been going.
EDITOR’S NOTE: If you or someone you know may be considering suicide, there is help. Contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988 (in Spanish, call 988, press 2; for the deaf and hard of hearing, dial 711 and then 988). You can also contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.
Ámbar Victoria Singer/KJZZ
Lindsay Taylor
full conversation
LINDSAY TAYLOR: We use two evidence-based models. One is called CAMS. It means collaborative assessment and management of suicide. And then the other model is DBT, dialectical behavioral therapy. Those are the most effective evidence-based suicide treatment models. And then between those two, we can identify what leads a person to have suicidal thoughts, we call them drivers. And that’s what we focus our entire treatment plan on.
LAUREN GILGER: So I want to talk a little bit about Chandler Unified School District’s motivation for implementing this. I mean, there was COVID funding for it, right? So there was money available, which is rare. But there were also some real problems, and I know you wrote district before this, there were some real problems with suicide there with children who committed suicide.
TAYLOR: Yes, during my time in the district, there was one year when we had about three suicides in the month of May. I think that was in 2022. But just during my time at Perry, we had a few suicides. And so the director of counseling and social service at the time, Brenda Vargas, saw that there was a great need to be able to direct families to real help for this. And that’s how the Hope Institute was brought to CUSD because there was a problem. And this is a problem not just in CUSD, it’s a problem at the state level, at the national level, but CUSD wanted to find a solution to help their students who were struggling.
GILGER: And this is not the only Hope Institute in the entire country, but it is the first, right, that is directly connected to a school.
TAYLOR: Correct.
GILGER: So let’s talk a little bit about how kids end up there. What kind of behavior might get them referred there? Do they, I mean, this is not, this is not involuntary, choose to go?
TAYLOR: Correct. Yes. Yes. So it’s definitely a choice. The parents consent to it. So any child who struggles with suicidal ideation is usually identified through the school if he is having suicidal thoughts and then the school counselor, social worker and psychologist are usually the ones who refer them to the Hope Institute. However, parents, if they know their children are struggling with suicidal ideation, can also call and refer their children.
GILGER: It’s basically been up and running for the first school year. I think it opened in September, in the fall, right? How has it worked? It has been successful?
TAYLOR: Yes. At this point, we’ve served a couple hundred kids, which I mean, it’s great that this is available now. It’s sad that we need this. But the fact that we’ve had, you know, a couple hundred kids that have gone through the program. To me, that’s more than just a number. I see it as 200 lives saved. And I definitely think it’s a need, A, and it’s having an impact. We have had a really good success rate and clients completed the program successfully.
We have kids who, you know, have been hospitalized multiple times and never got the care they needed and then they came through the Hope Institute and we were able to eliminate that suicidality.
GILGER: Good. So it’s surprising, right, that something like this existed before and in most places where this doesn’t exist, the option is the hospital and they don’t give treatment, they’re just stabilizing people. What does that look like?
TAYLOR: Yes. Yes. So, basically that’s the option if you’re suicidal: hospitalization. And really, in hospitals, the purpose is simply to stabilize the client. After stabilizing a client, they typically recommend intensive outpatient programming or simply ongoing therapy. The problem is that many therapists do not specialize in suicide treatment. They are not trained in CAMS and sometimes there is a waiting list for ongoing counselling. The other thing about Hope Institute that I didn’t mention is that we offer next day appointments. That is why it is very important that we receive clients within 24 business hours. And then with ongoing counseling, it’s usually once a week and sometimes kids need more than that.
GILGER: So a couple hundred kids. How young?
TAYLOR: Our youngest recommendation was 6 years old. The youngest client we have treated was 7 years old. And honestly, we were very surprised by the number of Elementary referrals we had this year. It was much more than we thought it would be.
GILGER: That’s heartbreaking. Talk a little bit about why, for example, what kind of problem do children have? What do you say is leading to this?
TAYLOR: So I think this is a really important and multifaceted question. Like I don’t think there’s a simple answer. But what I will say is that I think one of the biggest problems our kids face today is technology. Cell phones. Children, getting younger, have these devices put in their hands and it’s too much for their developing brains, they don’t know how to handle it. It makes them feel less than they are online on social media, comparing themselves to others. Learning things online that maybe they’re not ready for, their brains can’t process, they’re not, it’s not developmentally appropriate.
Also, just getting outside, getting out is a very important part of coping, being in nature, being active and we’re seeing less and less of that. We are seeing more isolation, more turning to phones and the bottom line is that phones are addictive. Technology is addictive. So if kids spend too much time playing video games, too much time on screens, phones, whatever, that’s going to lead to depression and anxiety. I mean, it’s a fact that research has shown that it can lead to that. So I think technology, too much, too much screen time for kids, is what exacerbates this problem.
GILGER: I’m wondering, have you had any stories that went the other way, where you couldn’t help the student and completely committed suicide?
TAYLOR: No, fortunately we have not. And, you know, of course nothing is, nothing is infallible. We know. But I think what’s really important is that we’re doing everything we can to get to the bottom of the problem and deal with it. And I think as long as we continue to stick to that and work, work with that, we can save a lot of lives.
GILGER: Do children enter the program, complete it, are stable or well for a while and then return?
TAYLOR: Yes. So that happens sometimes. We have a low recidivism rate, so low performance. So at Hope Institute as a whole, at every location, we have never been above a 5% 90-day recidivism rate. So just to give you an idea, we have a location in Atlanta. It is in conjunction with the children’s hospital there. They had pulled data from their children’s hospital emergency room showing that 90% of children who had gone to the suicidal ideation center returned within 30 days. 90%.
GILGER: I want to talk about the stigma in this. What about the students? Are they worried that other children will find out that this is something they are involved in?
TAYLOR: Yeah, I’d say most are pretty open to it. Our children today are different than when we grew up. Like they’re much more open to talking about these things. That’s why I think the stigma is not as strong as it used to be. But I will say that there are definitely some that we’ve seen emerge that I think are concerned about that. And that’s been a bit of a barrier, I think to get buy-in from students, they don’t want to be labeled as that, they don’t want to be seen as that. So I definitely want to acknowledge that. I think the stigma is still alive, but I would say that most are very open to it.
GILGER: That’s really interesting. Tell me a little about the big picture you have in mind. Like you’re working every day, you know, to try to stem the tide, right? I like to keep children alive, essentially to prevent them from committing suicide and help them move forward in their lives. And you’re seeing these kind of big picture, cultural and social things that are leading to those problems, do you sometimes feel like you’re treading water?
TAYLOR: You know, I definitely think about the fact that we even need this, right? I think this is not something we would have needed even 10 years ago, 20 years ago. And sometimes I feel that way because of the way our world is going: kids are struggling more than ever. So yes, I definitely feel that way at times, however, I also know that I think this is a really important step to at least address or treat the issue. And then prevention is another facet of what we want to do with the Hope Institute: also work on that prevention part and educate parents and the community about what can be done to avoid getting to this point of becoming suicidal.
GILGER: So this is going to look a little different in the future, as I understand it, because the COVID funds that started this program specifically related to CUSD are running out, as are many COVID funds. How is this going to change?
TAYLOR: Then we will be self-sufficient. Once all of our insurance contracts are in place, we will open it up to the larger East Valley community so we can begin serving more than just Chandler Unified students, which aims to be open throughout Arizona.
KJZZ’s The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text may not be in its final form. The authorized record of KJZZ programming is the audio record.
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