Like many of her classmates, Raegann McDonald (pictured left) is going on college visits and making the most of her senior year in high school as an athlete and leader. But this Clay County Community High School student is also making it her mission to address the root causes of why several of her peers committed suicide in a short period of time in 2023.  

“You can’t just address the problem, you have to address why the problem is going on,” McDonald said. “It’s important that we break the stigma.” 

After a Communities that Care survey showed drug and alcohol abuse had risen among her peers, McDonald said she got involved at the end of her freshman year in the local chapter of Youth Leaders in Kansas, or YLinK, a program administered by the Kansas Department for Aging and Disabilities Services (KDADS).  

YLinK cultivates leadership skills in 12- to 18-year-old Kansans to address mental health stigma, suicide prevention and behavioral health awareness. As a sophomore, McDonald served as her local YLink chapter president and got more involved with KDADS’s Behavioral Health Services Commission. She also works closely with Isabelle Blackwood, also a senior at Clay County Community High School, who was the Kansas Prevention Counsel Youth Leader of the Year in 2023 and selected to serve on the National Advisory Board for the C4 Center for Youth Well-Being based at the University of Oklahoma. 

At the beginning of McDonald’s junior year, three students in Clay County USD 379 took their lives within a span of about three months, garnering statewide and national attention. One of the students was the brother of another student who had committed suicide in 2019. Another was one of McDonald’s friends. 

“It was definitely a turning point,” she said. “It’s gotten a lot more personal in that I’ve got to make sure people know their lives are valued.” 

One of the several ways McDonald, Blackwood and their peers are trying to make sure they are connecting with other students at Clay County Community High School is through the “Bandana Squad,” a peer-to-peer mentor group. McDonald said the group’s members aren’t meant to take the place of professional counselors or therapists but they are trained to observe certain signs of poor mental health and suicide so they can encourage their peers to seek help from an adult. She said they wear colorful bandanas on their backpacks to show they are safe to confide in and share what each other is experiencing. 

“A big part of getting people to talk is to open up and tell each other we’re in the same boat and that none of us are perfect,” McDonald said. “We try to validate each other and what each other is going through. It’s all about the relationship building so that everyone has someone they can relate to.” 

Lisa Last is the school, family and community connections counselor at Clay County Community High School. She said the conversations McDonald, Blackwood and other students are having with their peers is “more powerful than anything an adult can say.”  

“We do have more kids who are reaching out for help and talking more (about suicide) than they did 10 years ago,” she said. “It normalizes that you can ask for help.” 

Last said Clay County USD 379 has implemented “Signs of Suicide” in the district for seventh-graders, freshmen, sophomores and juniors. She said the program helps students recognize some of the warning signs of suicide so they can reach out to an adult. The district’s counseling staff has also revamped USD 379’s suicide protocols which includes a reintegration plan for students who have been absent because of suicide-related issues.  

“We’re still a work in progress,” Last said, “but it’s really helped us to have a written plan.” 

In addition to the USD 379 students who are talking more about mental health and the issues surrounding suicide, Last said parents and members of the Clay Center and Wakefield communities also have engaged in “courageous conversations” in the past year. 

“It’s been a really great grassroots response,” she said. “As a community we’re talking about it and trying to make it better.” 

September is Suicide Prevention Month. Click here for more information about the services and resources available for suicide awareness and prevention in Kansas.