Yampah Mountain High School is a small school in Glenwood Springs that provides additional support for a high-risk student population of 171. Yampah Mountain's grant funding for the Drug and Alcohol Intervention Counselor is ending this year, and Yampah Mountain Leadership went before the Garfield County Commissioners on Tuesday to request funding to keep the position. Here's Yampah Mountain's Zoe Stern.
Stern: We struggle to identify where our students need support and how we can help them, and this position does exactly that. We really look into our students with high trauma, with anxiety, depression, [and] suicidal ideations. Her caseload currently is 60 students out of 171. We have students that come to us because traditional education systems didn't work, and not because we're better, we're different. We really prioritize mental health. We really look at individualizing. We do home visits. We set up intervention, contracts, behavioral supports, outlets, regrouping strategies, and all of those strategies really come from this intervention counselor.
The county has over $120,000 coming in every year from opioid settlements, money that the commissioners decide how to spend. Here's Commissioner Tom Jankovsky.
Jankovsky: You know, I do like the fact that this is intervention. I think the regional opioid group that we're also participate in is doing more prevention. This is intervention. And if we can save one individual, it is money well spent. And we can do it at this age before you get into your thirties and forties and still [be] dealing with this problem. I'd like to see us approve this.
The intervention program at Yampa Mountain High School isn't only for children struggling with addiction or substance use. It's also an important part of suicide prevention.
Stern: We are one of the highest valleys with suicide concerns. And I worked at Basalt for 15 years and then at Roaring Fork High School for five years. And the trauma that this valley suffers from is monumental. And one thing I can say is that because of these interventions and supports that we really hone in on at Yampah, we've had less with higher risk students.
Funding from the county is only a part of the stream of revenue and partnerships that support the intervention counselor position. The commissioners unanimously approved $25,000 of opioid settlement funding to go towards the position.
