Mountain Ridge High School is partnering with Teen Lifeline to help students through the struggles of mental health. Teen Lifeline is a program that provides services that students can turn to in order to deal with stress, depression, or any type of crisis as they work to provide hope in teenagers.

The purpose of Teen Lifeline according to their website is to provide “a safe, confidential, and crucial crisis service where teens help teens make healthy decisions together.” Mountain Ridge has provided the contact information for Teen Lifeline on the back of every student ID to call or text to help students feel more secure and to give them an outlet for those who may be suffering from any type of crisis.

Ms. Martin, an administrator at Mountain Ridge, explained the reason for the school’s interest in the program. “We just want to provide as many supports for the students as we can here. We have academic support, and we want to provide emotional and social support to our students too.”

Teen Lifeline is coming to Ridge next semester for a presentation to freshmen to help them better understand the program and provide them with the tools to help other students or handle crisis situations. The hope of the program is that it will teach students about potentially harmful situations, and to help them identify students who are in a crisis or potentially suicidal.

The Mountain Ridge staff plans to meet with Teen Lifeline, inviting parents of freshman students in PE and health classes to an information night, and then the program will work with the freshman.

“Our goal is that we will work with our freshman students every year moving forward,” Ms. Martin said.

Although this is primarily targeted towards the freshman students, there is still help provided for older students. There are after school groups set up by the counseling department for anybody who may need it.

“This is just our starter, and then we’ll work on offering some other things that may expand to more of the student population,” Ms. Martin said.

Teen Lifeline’s program and partnership with the school is important to the mental health of students and will benefit everybody on this campus, from teaching students how to help others to providing assistance to those who may need it.

“You can never have too many people coming together in the best interest of students to help them,” Mrs. Martin said.