California Healthy Kids Survey Tahoe Truckee Unified School District 11th graders who reported chronic feelings of sadness and hopelessness.

We have more depression than we should have in our community due to:

• Exaggerated Alcohol and Drug abuse
• Exaggerated Isolation
• The disparity of wealth:
• Small businesses owners: They have about 10-12 weeks to make their money for the year. What kind of support do they have?
• The area is a resort community working in the resort industry. It attracts young people who come for a year to work in the ski industry and party; they end up staying here
• There is a culture of partying: it becomes mainstream culture for those above who stay; over time the culture has become entrenched
• In addition, people come up for long weekends to party
• 9-11 graders have a drug and alcohol usage that is higher than the state average; when parent are surveyed, their attitude is casual: “that’s what you do in HS.” Young drinking and drugging is normed behavior in our community; there is very low stigma
• There is a mythology about the area: “renegade spirits” are attracted to the area and want to stay.
• People also are attracted to the area’s type of isolation in nature
• The area creates geographic isolation and weather isolation
• Area housing also creates isolation:
  • The community has designed mostly single family housing; there is not much communal housing
  • Lack of walkability; many neighborhoods have no workable sidewalks which is socially isolating
  • A lot of empty housing – part-time residents
  • There is a lack more natural support systems to compensate for this isolation
  • For the Latino population there is additional isolation
  • Undocumented teens feel isolated in school
  • Everyone has fears of deportation – fears of immigration coming around; when ICE shows up people are afraid to come out of their homes
  • Families feel that life is not stable– they don’t know what their rights are
  • This insecurity feeds on itself and intensifies for the entire community.

Tahoe Forest Health District

Tahoe Truckee Unified School District

Tahoe SAFE Alliance

Placer County Behavioral Health

Nevada County Behaviroral Health

EMQ Families First

North Tahoe Family Resource Center

Family Resource Center of Truckee

Strategy #1: Increase prevention, early itervention and treatment of depression.

Strategy #2: Improve the quality and effectiveness of services through systems coordination and process improvements. This strategy includes the following activities:
-5150 process improvement
-Suicide Prevention Coalition
-Suicide Postvention Protocol development