What Survey Says

Rapid Assessment for Adolescent Prevention Services (RAAPS).
Youth don't always share, but they will RAAP.

In response to the increase in incidents of school shootings, the NC General Assembly made funds available to counties across the state to address the Mental Health of students. Pender County received funds from this initiative to hire two Social Workers and also to partner with PATH to help address some of the challenges our children face. However, to better understand the needs, we decided to ask the students themselves.

In collaboration with Pender County Schools and Coastal Horizons, PATH set out to get real-time data of our students' state of mental health. We utilized the RAAPS Survey in the Spring of 2019 for all 3rd through 12th-grade students.

Approximately 5,000 students took the survey, and we discovered some alarming but not surprising things about the state of our children's mental health. The survey covers the leading risk factors for injury or death in youth ages 9 - 19. The most concerning data showed that 30% of all those surveyed answered positively for depression. In 2019, Path and Coastal Horizons brought in additional therapists to help meet the mental health needs of our students. Also, we are conducting programs for the prevention of anxiety and depression using the learning to breathe curriculum within Cape Fear MS, W Pender MS, Topsail MS, and Cape Fear Elementary School.