*Montana: "During the last 12 months, almost 10% of MT high school students attempted suicide"

Dec 20, 2017, Montana Public Radio: New Committee Mandates Montana School Suicide Prevention Plans http://mtpr.org/post/new-committee-mandates-montana-school-suicide-prevention-plans During the last 12 months, almost 10 percent of Montana high school students attempted suicide one or more times. That’s according to a biannual youth risk behavior survey. State lawmakers this year responded by requiring Montana’s 409 public school districts to draw up suicide prevention and response plans. A committee that met for the first time Wednesday will – as now mandated by law – develop a policy to ensure those districts follow through. … Kayla Jackson of the The Washington D.C.-based School Superintendents Association says suicide is now a national public health crisis and a major topic of conversation in education. “Kids come to school now with all kinds of trauma and mental health disorders that I won’t say they didn’t have when I was in school in the '70s and '80s, but that are certainly, I think, exacerbated by the current environment that we live in. They bring those with them in that other backpack that we perhaps we can’t see,” Jackson says. According to Jackson, that includes insecurity in the post 9/11 world, an inescapable social media landscape where bullies thrive, and ever-earlier diagnoses of mental and emotional disorders. "Providers are overwhelmed by the number of young people who need their assistance