Western Montana Professional Learning Collaborative and Montana Small Schools Alliance Select STOPit to Deliver a Proactive Approach to the Youth Mental Health Crisis

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Mar 09, 2023, 09:00 ET

The Montana CARES App will provide Connections to Resources, Immediate Crisis Support & A Safe Communication Channel

HOLMDEL, N.J., March 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- STOPit Solutions, a leader in safety and wellness solutions announced its selection by the Western Montana Professional Learning Collaborative (WMPLC) and the Montana Small Schools Alliance (MSSA) to create the Montana CARES App to meet the unseen needs of their school community by providing access and linkages to resources for basic needs, mental health, and family resilience while ensuring the privacy and dignity all people deserve.

Montana schools have faced a lack of equitable resources, low student enrollment, inadequate financial resources, and difficulty recruiting qualified educators and mental health resources. This has increased the need to improve and provide equitable school-based mental health support and other resources to prevent school violence. The 2021 Montana Youth Risk Behavior Survey shared that in a one-year time frame, 8.9% of Montana students carried a gun on one or more days (not counting for hunting or for sport.) In that same time frame, 23.4% of students seriously considered attempting suicide and 41.4% of students felt so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that they stopped doing some of their usual activities.

"As a school professional, it's personal. There is a strong and growing need to improve and provide equitable school-based mental health support and other resources to prevent school violence in rural settings," said Jessica Johnson Co-Director, WMPLC. "Students are being trained to run, hide, or fight for their lives in a school shooting. We must focus on a continued dialogue on stopping school violence with a stronger focus on early intervention and prevention. By launching the Montana CARES App, we will be in a better position to meet students' critical needs in rural, tribal, and frontier schools."

Montana CARES will improve schools' access to skilled counseling services, social-emotional supports and content, a trauma and neuroscience-informed curriculum, mental health assessments and treatment, and strategic plans for sustaining these resources. By partnering with STOPit, Montana schools will have access to e-therapy assessments and treatment and direct access to Crisis Text Line.

"We've seen that students in rural areas often have fewer resources than students in more urban districts," said Parkhill Mays, CEO, and co-Founder of STOPit Solutions. "The Montana CARES App will provide Montana schools with additional and immediate support resources to provide students, parents, and staff with services they need to improve their physical and mental well-being,"

Montana CARES will provide a safe communication channel to come forward to voice a concern or ask for help for yourself, your child, or a friend without the stress of having to self-identify. Providing connections and linkages to resources, support, and help can go a long way toward removing barriers to learning and building a thriving school community.

Montana CARES aims to transform students, staff, and the community from bystanders to upstanders, from spectators to participants, and from victims to empowered members of their school community. Meeting the students, staff, and families where they live in the tech world to provide them with a transformative resource using the world's most powerful technology, their personal devices.

About WMPLC
Western Montana Professional Learning Collaborative supports improved student achievement through providing state-supported high-quality professional development in core academic areas and education-related topics. WMPLC goals are to increase the subject-matter knowledge of teachers, increase teacher understanding and use of effective, research-based instructional strategies, and increase teacher competency in the use of educational technology.

About MSSA
Montana Small Schools Alliance helps rural school districts meet state and federal standards in educationally sound ways. MSSA serves over 140 schools in the State through professional development, guidance and library standards, grants and scholarships, MAP testing, and continued communication related to our smallest schools.

About STOPit Solutions
STOPit Solutions is the leading provider of safety and wellness solutions that help protect the physical, social, and emotional well-being of millions of students, employees, and citizens throughout the United States and abroad. It achieves this by providing over 8,000 schools, workplaces, and communities award-winning technology-based solutions that help intervene on safety and well-being concerns, respond, and mitigate critical incidents, and educate individuals on personal safety & wellness. As a result, STOPit Solutions has been able to save and change the lives of millions while creating safer, healthier places to learn, work, and live. Visit stopitsolutions.com to learn more.

SOURCE STOPit Solutions