{"id":142278,"date":"2025-09-14T01:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T01:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/142278\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T01:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T01:22:10","slug":"students-share-experiences-during-mental-health-panel-at-nic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/142278\/","title":{"rendered":"Students share experiences during mental health panel at NIC"},"content":{"rendered":"

COEUR d\u2019ALENE \u2014 When Maddie Jereczek made the transition from middle to high school, she didn\u2019t expect much to change.<\/p>\n

However, she found herself struggling. She had to move to an online format for school as things got worse and was eventually diagnosed with anxiety and depression.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t one event that caused my depression,\u201d Jereczek said. \u201cIt was many little factors that broke me down.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took Jereczek about a year to fully understand what was going on with her mental health \u2014 and when she finally did return to Coeur d\u2019Alene High School, she was empowered to prioritize her mental well-being in a way she wasn\u2019t before.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so worried about fitting in and having a big group of friends that I had lost myself,\u201d Jereczek recalled.<\/p>\n

Jereczek, along with three other students, shared her story in front of a few dozen people during Thursday\u2019s panel on youth mental health at North Idaho College.<\/p>\n

The students highlighted traditional stressors that have an impact on mental health, such as schoolwork and fitting in, in addition to relatively new issues, including cyberbullying.<\/p>\n

\u201cCyberbullying doesn\u2019t stop when you get home … it can really take its toll,\u201d said junior Emmie Nail.<\/p>\n

Junior Addison Wallace added that becoming comfortable with asking for help allowed her to better cope with her generalized anxiety disorder.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to communicate what\u2019s going on, even if all you can say is, \u2018I don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on,\u2019\u201d Wallace said.<\/p>\n

Following the student panel, mental health experts weighed in on conditions impacting youth mental health.<\/p>\n

Currently, each of Idaho\u2019s 44 counties is considered to have a shortage of mental health providers and ranks last in the nation for number of psychiatrists per capita, according to Renard Alotta with Kootenai Health.<\/p>\n

A youth in crisis most often ends up in the emergency room and is often discharged following an evaluation, Alotta\u00a0added.<\/p>\n

Even so, prevention most often starts outside inpatient treatment \u2014 with open conversations with youth about mental health, he emphasized.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it starts just like this,\u201d Alotta\u00a0said, gesturing to the audience. \u201cWe want getting help to become a normal part of growing up.\u201d<\/p>\n

NIC dean of students Alex Harris\u00a0agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m amazed every week by college students who can talk about these things with someone they just met,\u201d Harris said. \u201cThere\u2019s hope in that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/a> \u00a0North Idaho College dean of students Alex Harris speaks during a panel on youth mental health Thursday at NIC.
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COEUR d\u2019ALENE \u2014 When Maddie Jereczek made the transition from middle to high school, she didn\u2019t expect much…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-142278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}