Film on recovery from teen depression sparks dialogue at NYSSBA Convention |
On Board Online • November 7, 2022
By George Basler
Special Correspondent
The film Tough Hope begins by listing some distressing statistics: Thirty-six percent of teenage girls will experience depression between 12 and 17 years of age; the percentage of children visiting children's hospitals for suicidal thoughts or attempts nearly doubled from 2008 to 2015.
"It is clear teen depression has become a public health crisis," narrates David Garrison, a psychiatrist at the University of Rochester Medical Center, who produced the film.
The 43-minute documentary was shown at NYSSBA's 2022 Annual Convention & Education Expo. The screening was followed by a panel discission featuring Garrison and Kyle Farmer, who directed the film while he was a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Tough Hope focuses on four students - Kristen, Molly, Kole, and Zadejah - who, taken together, had 18 stays in psychiatric hospitals for depression when they were teenagers. Garrison had treated all four young people.
In often jarring detail, the four tell deeply personal stories about their struggles with depression. But the film also spotlights the students' strengths and the treatments and interventions that led to their recoveries.
"There's enough shock media and 'doom and gloom' out there. We wanted to focus on the upside. We've moved towards a better understanding of how our minds work," Farmer said prior to the screening.
The film has been used by the Shenendehowa Central School District as a discussion-starter. It is important to provide students with the ability to discuss the film in a supportive format and to follow up on any issues that arise, according to Garrisson.
The four students fit no stereotype. Kristen was active in sports, with volleyball being her favorite. Molly was into music. Kole described himself as "a happy go lucky kid," who never liked wearing girls clothing and eventually identified as male. Zadejah loved performing in her high school's musicals.
But depression impacted their lives. "I remember being angry all the time," Kole said. Kristen began cutting herself and attempted suicide. "I was so desperate to get out of what I was feeling I would have done anything," she said.
In the end, their stories are positive ones. "There are many paths to recovery," Garrison said. "They [the four students] are role models who have each done it in their own way through a combination of therapeutic factors inside and outside psychiatry."
Farmer and Garrison filmed Tough Hope during the 2018-19 school year. Their goal was to increase public understanding and provide educators "genuine insights" on ways to address student emotional health, Farmer said prior to the screening.
Other experts in the documentary include Melanie Funchess, director of Community Engagement at the Mental Health Association of Rochester; Peter Wyman, director of the School and Community-Based Prevention Laboratory at the University of Rochester Medical Center; and Michael Scharf, director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
The experts stressed the importance of having honest discussions about the issue of depression. So did the students.
"I want it to become weird not to get help when suffering from depression," Scharf said. But, while one in five young adults meet the criteria of some mental health condition, only 20 percent of them seek help from a mental health provider, he noted. Kole remembered his family "viewed it as just kind of deal with it." Zadejah said she thinks "it's brainwashed into minorities that mental health is a white person's problem," but "it's so not true."
Medicine played a role in the students' recovery. So did counseling. Most importantly, creating a sense of wellness is crucial for people in recovery, Garrison said.
"There is no one way to make up the components of a person's wellness. Different goals and activities can each be as important as medication and work hand in hand with each other to improve all aspects of a student's wellness," Garrison said.
Wyman voiced similar thoughts. While prevention and wellness are not the same thing, they are deeply intertwined, he said: "When we help create conditions and help individuals to develop wellness, prevention is likely to follow from that."
Wyman's team at the University of Rochester Medical Center is affiliated with Sources of Strength, a national program that uses teams of peer leaders mentored by adult advisors to help young people cope with challenges they face. Those challenges include bullying and feelings of social isolation.
Tough Hope highlighted this program, which is now active in 60 to 70 schools in New York State. "We wanted to highlight the importance of peer discussions," Farmer said. Schools need to create an environment where students can be honest about what they're feeling, he added.
The four students are all doing well now. Kole is working as a social worker. Kristen is studying to be a physical therapist. Zadejah is focused on working with children and starting her own sleep away camp. Molly, who attended the screening and took questions afterward, graduated from college in May with a degree in psychology. She is now working as a music sound engineer while formulating her next step.
Molly's story and those of her peers touched school board members in the audience. "The students deserve a great deal of credit for being so open," said Deanna Lothrop, a school board member in the Lyme Central School District. The stories illustrate that it's important to talk about mental health and depression, not hide it, she said.
Christine Schnars, a Jamestown school board member and Area 3 director for NYSSBA, thanked Molly for modeling resilience and bravery. The film showed that schools need to offer more social and emotional support to students, she said.
Garrison emphasized that wellness education needs to be part of the school curriculum, and it can't just be a one-shot deal. "We need to make it normal to talk about mental health," he said.