Photo by Michele Newbanks Students from Washington County high schools learn to be positive influences at the Building Bridges to Careers center in Marietta. From the left, Maria Pfaff, Gretchen Lankford, Caden Scott and Ahni Geogerian discuss what kind of event they could present to middle school students.

Teens nowadays have more stressors than ever. From anxiety about school shootings to getting accepted to the best colleges, most teens are stressed about something, which can lead to substance abuse.

Six local high school students visited Heidelberg University in Tiffin for five days last month to learn how to be better leaders and peers. This week, they brought what they learned back to figure how to make it work locally.

Suzy Zumwalde, placement coordinator for Building Bridges to Careers in Marietta, met in the spring with Hilles Hughes, deputy director of the Washington County Behavioral Health Board, and found out about the Ohio Teen Institute.

“It’s a week-long camp with an emphasis on leadership with high school students, and kind of addressing mental health and substance abuse,” Zumwalde said. “So we took six kids and three adults up there, with funding from the Behavioral Health board, and spent five days up there.”

She said the experience was amazing and the group intended to come back to Washington County to implement what they learned locally.

Maria Pfaff, 17, of Marietta was one of the students participating in the camp.

“(I’m) coming here and seeing there are people who have a big idea and can make it work,” she said of what she’s learned. “It’s almost inspiring for us because we have a big idea that we’re trying to start and it’s nice to see that other people have done it, so we can do it too. In the fall, we want to start a (Teen Institute) group at our school and maybe in the future we can start one at the middle school as well.”

She said she would like to bring back the idea that the group is very inclusive to all and will look out for everybody’s issues.

“And be accepting and judge-free,” added Gretchen Lankford, 16, of Marietta.

“It has two focuses,” Zumwalde said of the camp. “The first focus is prevention, and addressing issues at the schools, but we also want to focus on helping the kids develop career pathways for those who are interested in pursuing this as a career with counseling and working with mental health issues.”

Hughes said there are a lot of career pathways available for students interested in behavioral health.

“Those include case management, social work, psychology and counseling,” she said. “Academic preparation for these careers ranges from high school diplomas to an associate’s degree to a bachelor’s degree to a master’s degree and beyond.”

She said even if the students choose not to go into the behavioral heath field, the skills they learn will still be important.

“Their knowledge of societal issues, combined with their enhanced leadership and team work skills, may increase their future civic engagement in our county,” she said.

On Monday, an OTI conference leader from Marion County discussed with the students how to take their ideas back to their schools. Tuesday brought a panel discussion from behavioral health providers on the issues and careers the youth can get involved in, while Jeffrey Cordell of Marietta College will be doing some real-life scenario role playing during today’s session.

Zumwalde said the intention is that the OTI be represented in all seven county high schools.

The activities are school-based, but there will also be an over-lying advisory panel where students from all over the county will look at issues that are more community-wide.

OTI is a youth-led program where students will determine what issues will be discussed, based on what the specific issues are at that school, as well as what’s needed overall in the community.

“Camps, such as the Washington County Teen Institute, can help youth develop leadership skills important in all types of careers,” Hughes said. “The students also learn to engage with diverse community agencies so that they can serve as leaders, role models and active participants sharing their important perspectives to help solve our challenging issues.”

Zumwalde said this will be an on-going program and the goal is to send another group of students to OTI again next summer.

The students will take what they’ve learned at the camp in Tiffin back to their schools in the fall and this week’s camp will help give them the tools to better help their fellow students.

Anyone at the high school level may participate in the OTI, and the six students who participated in the camp this summer represented Frontier, Marietta and Belpre high schools, as well as the Washington County Career Center.

Frontier High School student Destiny Rone, 15, said she’s learned during her time with the camp that a leader is someone who helps everybody understand that “we’re just here for everybody and that no matter what, you’re welcome.”

Jodi Galloway, director of Marion-Crawford Prevention Programs, brought Marion County students to Marietta as Marion County has a thriving Teen Institute group.

She has been teaching students through OTI for 25 years.

“We provide youth-led prevention, we have a really strong youth-led prevention program, so we’re using (Marion County) students to help the Washington County kids become actively involved in the program,” Galloway said. “Because if they have a strong program, it only strengthens our program.”

She said the schools choose what issues they want to tackle, and Marion County schools focus on substance abuse prevention and mental heath promotion, as well as positive youth development.

“Helping these kids understand what can they do to promote mental health. What can they do to promote positive decision making,” Galloway explained. “So youth-led is very much about helping them figure out what they can do. It’s not us telling them what to do, it’s helping them discover what would work in their own schools and their own communities. What works for us might not work for them. So they have to figure out what works within their sphere of influence. It’s helping them figure those things out.”

She said Marion County students are focusing on mental health promotion because they felt the younger students were feeling a lot of stress as they got older and they wanted to help them deal with their issues in a positive manner.

“How do I deal with the stresses in my life in a positive way without using substances, without engaging in negative behaviors of any sort,” she said.

She said many students have stress because they feel like they don’t fit in.

“How do they then identify and seek help? Anxiety is huge among this age group,” she added. “We’re just now, as a country, starting to take a look at that, at those issues.”

Kim Depue, transitions and career adviser at Marietta High School, was one of the adults who attended the camp in June.

“With all of the high schools in the county, we want to have a youth-led county-wide steering committee forming teen institute groups in each high school. And those students would determine what their needs are,” she said.

In Washington County high schools, she said help is needed with mental health issues.

“We have a lot of anxiety. We have a lot of depression. Undiagnosed and unrecognized. Older generations are kind of quick to brush off the anxiety, but the world has changed a lot since we were in high school,” Depue explained. “We have active shooting drills, we have high rates of divorce. We have about 26 percent poverty rate in Marietta. I know with the high poverty rate, their personal hygiene leads kids to be secluded and not want to come to school. They’re being ostracized. So that’s also a concern. I know at Marietta High School there’s high stress. Whether it’s getting into the right college, worrying about graduating or worrying about having enough food to eat.”

The students attending camp on Monday were open and honest about what they’ve learned and how they want to change their schools.

“Something that I’ve learned is that you can recognize there are a lot of youth in the area who are really passionate about change, because when you’re in school every day, you kind of just see people don’t care, or just kind of ignore the issues, but from here, you can see there are a lot of mature teens who do want to make a change and are currently doing so,” said Ahni Geogerian, 17, of Marietta.

Chelsi Phillis, 16, who also attends Frontier High School, said she wants to help make her community a better place.

“I’m hoping to bring everybody together in our community to make it a better place,” she said. “And to help stigma and help people dealing with depression and hopefully become a leader and set examples.”

Kaity Stewart, 15, of Belpre also wants to make a positive impact at Belpre High School.

“I just hope to take back leadership skills that I can use to get started a TI group and just to make an impact in the school,” she said.

Michele Newbanks can be reached at mnewbanks@mariettatimes.com.