From a mental health "first aid kit" to a novel app: How schools are working to prevent depression, anxiety, and panic attacks
From an app where kids can confidentially express their worries and mental health issues in writing to workshops that seek to put them in the shoes of those who suffer from bullying. From training cooks to identify students in school cafeterias who might be contemplating death to operating a youth club on weekends.
These are just a few examples of the successful strategies being implemented across the country by schools seeking to address a growing social crisis: mental health issues among children and adolescents.
“We place a lot of emphasis on the importance of children being happy at school. That's our priority. Because if they fail a subject, they'll get support hours. But to move forward, we need them to be happy," says Claudio Peña, principal of the Dr. José Vicente Zapata public secondary school, located in the heart of Mendoza. He describes that there are students with panic attacks, phobias and low tolerance to frustration.
In Argentina, a child or adolescent between the ages of 10 and 19 commits suicide every 20 hours, according to a LA NACION investigation. Furthermore, cases of those suffering from depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and self-harm, among other conditions, have increased alarmingly in recent years. In this context, specialists agree that schools are a key place to prevent and identify these mental health problems. However, as recently revealed by a , most schools lack spaces for children to express their feelings, teachers are unprepared to recognize warning signs, and school guidance teams are insufficient . Meanwhile, at the national level, there is no law or public policy that determines how these issues should be addressed in the classroom.
But even with very limited resources, there are schools that are making an extraordinary effort to provide answers. "We can't just stand idly by. There are very serious cases." , summarizes Evangelina Acuña, general secretary of the Institutional Unit No. 1 Riveras del Valle school in Catamarca, where At the beginning of the year, a 14-year-old student committed suicide. .
In the city of Mendoza, the Dr. José Vicente Zapata School is over 100 years old and has 1,000 students. Claudio Peña has been its principal for 14 years. Since the pandemic, and as has happened in all schools, Teachers noticed a big change in students' emotions and mental health. "There was an increase in panic attacks, phobias, and low frustration tolerance," Peña explains.
In 2021, they began developing different lines of action, with institutional projects that are renewed each year. The 2025 project is called "Connected" and includes several components. One of them consists of a "mental health first aid kit" : a series of weekly recreational activities and workshops that, through exercises related to breathing, expression, communication, and play , seek to provide children with tools to help them navigate emotional crises.
"We see that students, especially the younger ones, aren't prepared to face failure: they fail, and for them, it's the worst thing. That's why we start working on each student's life plan and strengthening them. That's one of the effective ways to prevent it," Peña says. To this end, they work collaboratively with the universities of Aconcagua and Mendoza , with students who are close to graduating with a psychology degree.
"We seek to create spaces for listening, where children can express what's happening to them and feel heard. I think that's the best solution we can offer." " adds the principal. On the other hand, when a student is found to need support, the School Guidance Service (SOE), made up of psychologists, educational psychologists, social workers, and education specialists, provides an initial approach.
In addition, it works closely with the student center . From there, they organize a series of workshops related to mental health, generally in collaboration with the Municipality of Mendoza. They also promote "theme days," which involve art, dance, and music as forms of expression. Emma Fernández and Catalina Seguy, president and vice president of the student center, agree on one key point: “In a teenager's life, school takes up most of your time. That's why it has to be a caring place, where you have someone to turn to, and we believe that's our role as a center.”
But there's more. Vicente Zapata School was the first in its province (today there are five) to adopt Qaizen , an app created by 17-year-old Valentín De Antonio from Mendoza and a group of classmates. The goal is for students to be able to express, in writing and confidentially, the issues they are facing, from bullying to others that directly affect their mental health.
“It especially helps the shyest or those who struggle to express themselves. From home or at school, they can send a text telling them what's happening to them . The only one who can read those comments is me, the principal, and from there we decide how to approach them,” Peña explains. Between 10 and 15 comments arrive per week. For the principal, the success is linked to the fact that the feedback is always immediate: “That way, you're already taking preventive measures.”
Earlier this year, tragedy struck the Riveras del Valle Institutional Unit No. 1 school, south of downtown Catamarca. One of its 14-year-old students committed suicide.
“It shocked us all. We started looking for strategies to contain the teachers and their fifth-grade classmates,” Evangelina Acuña, the general secretary of this school, which offers preschool, primary, and secondary education, says, "We asked professionals from the provincial Ministries of Education and Health to help us navigate the grieving process, and we began with a series of workshops."
Acuña explains that they are located "in an extremely vulnerable context, in settlements." Most of the parents have incomplete primary education. "There are many issues of domestic violence and entire families who use drugs," Acuña points out. “We provide a lot of support to the kids with the cafeteria, which helped us maintain enrollment because there was a lot of shortage before.”
Even with limited resources, the school is working hard to address the mental health issues that have skyrocketed among children, especially in high school. To this end, they are seeking to build a network with various stakeholders. “We started working with the Carlos Bravo Mini Hospital last year: we always turn to their social workers.” , Acuña details.
Catamarca is the province with the highest adolescent suicide rate in the country. , according to the latest official data . In 2023, 14 adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 took their own lives, giving a rate of 20 adolescents per 100,000. This figure is three times the national average , which recorded 438 adolescent suicides in 2023.
"It's a real burning issue within schools," says Carolina Álvarez, psychologist and director of Prevention, Promotion, and Community Approach to Mental Health, an area under the Ministry of Health of Catamarca. To address this reality, interministerial work is being carried out with the Ministry of Education and other key areas. All of this is part of the Provincial Suicide Prevention Strategy, which began to be implemented in May of last year.
One of the pillars is teacher training. Álvarez also says that the Ministry of Education has created an institutional post-treatment center to work with teachers regarding cases of attempted or completed suicides. This is what happened at the Riveras del Valle school.
After the student's suicide, they focused on those children who had previously attempted suicide (there were five) or who had expressed thoughts of death (seven). It is currently being coordinated with the Ministry of Education, where families are monitored.
For every suicide there may be between 10 and 30 attempts, according to studies the World Health Organization and other suicide risk reports . Suicidology experts explain that this imitation effect is neutralized when a space is created for children and families to talk.
“We talk to the parents. Many are willing to receive help, but due to their circumstances, they don't go to hospitals and have a hard time getting appointments. So they ask us to get them appointments with psychologists,” the director explains. It's not easy: professionals are few and far between, and the offices are overwhelmed.
"We don't have a psychological team; we have to work in a network with the Mini Hospital, the Ministry of Education, and the Family Secretariat because we've had many cases of violence and abuse," the director adds.
After the first day of suicide training, Acuña says the cooks "began to notice kids in the cafeteria who seemed strange." She explains: "We called them together to talk, and one told us he'd tried to commit suicide three times. He's 13. The other told me, 'I feel very alone.'"
They also see cases of self-harm . “The scars are visible. We need to work more closely with other ministries, and we urgently need to have psychotechnical teams in schools that can provide mental health care. We don't have any,” Acuña laments.
Drug use is another problem they face daily. At the initiative of a teacher, they launched a project called "Te abrazo" (I Embrace You), which seeks to address this reality , working closely with a social organization dedicated to rehabilitation.
“In addition, with the State's youth policy department, we started a traveling soccer project on Saturdays to integrate with other institutions, support, and encourage students. The kids don't compete, they share. They get talks and breakfast. Through the game, we try to detect, for example, if any of them are using drugs ,” says Acuña.
Dolores Lavalle Technical School No. 7 in Lavalle is a secondary school with 753 students. It's located in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Parque Patricios, and 30% of its students live in the neighborhood of 21-24 and Zavaleta. Diego Barón has been its principal since February of last year and explains that in recent years, Two of the issues they viewed with greatest concern were bullying and online gambling.
"The first case I encountered when I arrived at the school, and it affected me greatly, was cyberbullying. We detected it when a girl, who was a good student, didn't come to school for three days : that was the first warning sign," Barón explains.
“At first, I didn't want to share what was happening. But one of the educational psychologists on the school guidance team started digging a little deeper, and that's when it all came to light. Before, bullying happened during school hours. Now, with social media, it's 24/7. This girl had no peace. There were victims from other grades as well,” she says.
In this context, they contacted the Buenos Aires Public Prosecutor's Office , which offers workshops to schools, clubs, and other institutions on cyberbullying, violence in general, and mental health issues, among other topics. They organized a workshop (first with the class the student was attending, but later joined by others) where, in a playful way, the students put themselves in the shoes of those who suffer violence.
"The impact was wonderful, and from then on, things changed. We're going to continue with the workshops; we're not going to wait for another case." , Baron summarizes.
On Saturdays and as part of an initiative of the Buenos Aires Ministry of Education, The school operates as a youth club: everything from camps to chess games and all kinds of sports is organized. Barón says: “This has grown a lot since last year. We work closely with the club coordinator, Adrián Romero, so we can have monthly reports on the kids who attend, which their tutors will receive for better monitoring.”
Another problem the students faced was anxiety and a low tolerance for frustration when they performed poorly. "This happens especially with second-year students, who have to decide their major, or with those who are finishing school and don't know what to do next," the principal notes. In this context, at the end of this month they will launch the "Life Project," with the goal of "lowering anxiety levels and working on vocational guidance for the students so they can discover their talents."
But the school also considered another initiative: “Every year, before the students start high school, we play games and do activities with the physical education teachers to identify emotional problems or more introverted students. This way, we try to identify individualized problems and discuss them with their families and the guidance department. Through play, we try to understand what's happening to the student ,” Barón concludes.
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