Peer power: Mental Health Advocates' Teen Chat Line designed to change lives

Mar. 14—When he was 16, Doug Hahn didn't trust adults. He needed help from someone closer to his age to show him it was possible to emerge from a mental health crisis.

Through Mental Health Advocates' Youth Peer Advocates program, Hahn met regularly with an advocate only four years older who'd battled mental illness and spent time in the hospital — just like him.

"The wake-up moment was that she struggled just like I did, but she made it," said Hahn, now a coordinator for Mental Health Advocates. "She was now working. She had her own place. When I was really struggling, I had no future, in my mind."

That kind of relational support is at the heart of the Teen Chat Line, a new communication tool for Mental Health Advocates' professionals to provide emotional support to Western New York teenagers struggling with mental health concerns. MHA leadership described the new mental health outlet to media Thursday morning at Buffalo Academy of Science Charter School on Clare Street.

The chat platform is text-based and accessible through a link at mhawny.org or directly at mha-chat.vercel.app. It falls under MHA's Just Tell One initiative, which focuses on depression, anxiety, suicide and substance abuse.

Teens who send messages on the chat platform will reach one of MHA's 10 full-time youth peer advocates between 2 and 8 p.m. Monday through Friday. Advocates are trained, credentialed and experienced in supporting teens, but they are not clinicians and will not diagnose or prescribe. It's a support line and not an emergency line, leaders said, though youth peer advocates can redirect teens to emergency services.

"It's recognizing what they're feeling and going through is real, it is serious," said Josh Cuillo, a youth peer advocate with MHA, "but also letting them know 'I've gone through this before, I get where you're coming from, and here's a few things that worked for me.'"

Mental health support chat lines exist elsewhere in the country, but the Western New York version was prompted by takeaways from Gov. Kathy Hochul's Mental Health Summit, MHA Executive Director Melinda DuBois said Thursday.

"Kids don't want to talk to adults. They want to talk to somebody who looks like them and is closer to their age — those are our youth peer advocates," DuBois said of the conference's message. "We also learned [youth] don't trust adults. They are really concerned adults won't keep their information confidential."

Cuillo's work as a peer advocate engages directly with youth. He said it took time to acclimate to the role, specifically in remaining calm and comfortable with the youth instead of "heightened" and trying to solve everything. He's learned how to adapt.

"When I talk to youth, I filter but I'll still swear occasionally," Cuillo said. "I'm not trying to be overtly professional where they're saying, 'Who is this guy?'"

Cuillo said the pandemic's denial of important life experiences is among topics over which he regularly bonds with youth. They have lamented missing their high school graduations; the pandemic prevented Cuillo from celebrating a normal college graduation. He's also familiar with the power, influence and inescapability of social media, factors that extend bullying beyond the walls of a school.

Hahn and Cuillo agreed the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic created greater awareness of mental health issues that existed long prior — but reduced the stigma of talking about their feelings.

"There's always been this need," Hahn said. "The conversation has increased, increased, increased."

MHA's growth and consistency — in hospitals, mental health facilities and more than 65 Western New York schools in the last 15 months — has laid the framework to help address what DuBois calls a "youth mental health crisis at unprecedented levels."

She shared sobering statistics: one-third of teen boys and 57% of teen girls express persistent feelings of sadness, hopelessness and despair; 22% of teens say they have contemplated suicide, as well as 41% of LGBTQIA+ youth.

There's living proof that Mental Health Advocates' peer approach works. Hahn's life turnaround inspired him to become a youth peer advocate — and he's now a coordinator of the others with MHA. Peers' messages are impactful.

"It's very powerful," he said, "to hear someone very close to your age say, 'I've been there, I understand what it's like to have depression, to miss school.'"

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