By Jim Leonard for the Midcoast Villager.
Broadcast version by Kathryn Carley for New England News Service reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration
What amounts to kids talking to a trusted friend might not appear to be a major mental health intervention in public schools, but at Medomak Valley High School and other Maine schools it's a sign that Sources of Strength — a nationally recognized evidence-based model — is working.
At Medomak Valley, the student-led program has become a familiar presence in the building, both in the way peer advisers quietly support classmates and in the highly visible campaigns they roll out throughout the year. The group is advised by Regional School Unit 40 nurse Sherri Vail, who has worked with Sources of Strength for the past four years and describes it as a prevention model built on something straightforward but powerful: strengthening connection before students reach a point of crisis.
“It’s a strength-based program,” Vail said. “We try to make kids aware of the facet of your life you can work on to improve your mental health.”
That idea plays out through regular meetings and student-designed outreach that keeps mental health visible, and, importantly, normal, in everyday school life. Medomak Valley students have organized gratitude boards, thankfulness challenges, self-care reminders and the distribution of mental health checklists designed to help peers recognize stress and take steps to manage it. One of their most recognizable traditions, “Chalk About It,” fills parking areas each spring with handwritten messages of encouragement, turning a routine space into a public reminder that support is close by.
“Our peer advisers don’t have to know how to fix a problem,” Vail said. “Sometimes they just need to listen and, if necessary, to direct them to a trusted adult.”
The work is not about asking students to become counselors or crisis responders. Instead, Sources of Strength trains peer leaders to be what Vail calls connectors, classmates who know how to listen, how to encourage help-seeking and how to guide a struggling friend toward trusted adults when needed.
Vail said the approach fits the reality of adolescent life: Teenagers are far more likely to confide in peers than in adults, especially when stress and anxiety are still in the early stages. Helping students understand that dynamic, and giving them tools to respond in healthy, supportive ways, can change the entire culture of a school.
“Kids naturally turn to their peers,” she said. “Encouraging them to articulate what that is, with each other, is huge. Hopefully, they can figure things out together.”
Medomak Valley’s experience is part of a broader shift in how many educators and mental health advocates are thinking about prevention: Connection itself can be a protective factor. It is not simply access to counseling or crisis intervention, but the day-to-day relationships that help young people feel seen, supported and willing to ask for help before warning signs escalate.
Across Maine, that philosophy has taken root through Sources of Strength, a nationally recognized evidence-based model that emphasizes peer leadership, positive school culture, and building protective factors that support mental well-being over time. In Maine, the program is coordinated by NAMI Maine, the state affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
“We provide awareness, support, education and advocacy for individuals who struggle with their mental health, as well as families who support someone struggling with their mental health,” said Libby Wright, deputy director of NAMI Maine. Wright said peer relationships are not incidental to prevention but central to it. “Peer support really encourages help-seeking behavior, and it can increase youth-adult connection,” she said.
NAMI Maine partnered with the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention five years ago to bring Sources of Strength into schools statewide. Today, it operates in roughly 35 middle and high schools, aiming to reach students earlier and sustain those conversations across grade levels as pressures on youth continue to rise.
“They have access to so much more information,” Wright said of today’s youth. “Some of this can create comparative thinking,” intensifying stress and self-doubt.
“It’s a strength-based program,” Vail said. “We try to make kids aware of the facet of your life you can work on to improve your mental health.”
That idea plays out through regular meetings and student-designed outreach that keeps mental health visible, and, importantly, normal, in everyday school life. Medomak Valley students have organized gratitude boards, thankfulness challenges, self-care reminders and the distribution of mental health checklists designed to help peers recognize stress and take steps to manage it. One of their most recognizable traditions, “Chalk About It,” fills parking areas each spring with handwritten messages of encouragement, turning a routine space into a public reminder that support is close by.
“Our peer advisers don’t have to know how to fix a problem,” Vail said. “Sometimes they just need to listen and, if necessary, to direct them to a trusted adult.”
The work is not about asking students to become counselors or crisis responders. Instead, Sources of Strength trains peer leaders to be what Vail calls connectors, classmates who know how to listen, how to encourage help-seeking and how to guide a struggling friend toward trusted adults when needed.
Vail said the approach fits the reality of adolescent life: Teenagers are far more likely to confide in peers than in adults, especially when stress and anxiety are still in the early stages. Helping students understand that dynamic, and giving them tools to respond in healthy, supportive ways, can change the entire culture of a school.
“Kids naturally turn to their peers,” she said. “Encouraging them to articulate what that is, with each other, is huge. Hopefully, they can figure things out together.”
Medomak Valley’s experience is part of a broader shift in how many educators and mental health advocates are thinking about prevention: Connection itself can be a protective factor. It is not simply access to counseling or crisis intervention, but the day-to-day relationships that help young people feel seen, supported and willing to ask for help before warning signs escalate.
Across Maine, that philosophy has taken root through Sources of Strength, a nationally recognized evidence-based model that emphasizes peer leadership, positive school culture, and building protective factors that support mental well-being over time. In Maine, the program is coordinated by NAMI Maine, the state affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
“We provide awareness, support, education and advocacy for individuals who struggle with their mental health, as well as families who support someone struggling with their mental health,” said Libby Wright, deputy director of NAMI Maine. Wright said peer relationships are not incidental to prevention but central to it. “Peer support really encourages help-seeking behavior, and it can increase youth-adult connection,” she said.
NAMI Maine partnered with the Maine Centers for Disease Control and Prevention five years ago to bring Sources of Strength into schools statewide. Today, it operates in roughly 35 middle and high schools, aiming to reach students earlier and sustain those conversations across grade levels as pressures on youth continue to rise.
“They have access to so much more information,” Wright said of today’s youth. “Some of this can create comparative thinking,” intensifying stress and self-doubt.
The model is built around eight “strengths,” or protective factors, shown in research to improve resilience and reduce risk: family support, positive friends, caring adults, healthy activities, generosity, a sense of purpose or spirituality, physical health and mental health. Rather than treating well-being as one single issue, the program encourages students to see wellness as something supported by multiple relationships and habits, a network of strengths that can be built up over time.
Those themes are brought into school life through student-led campaigns: posters, announcements, art projects, gratitude challenges and repeated reminders of where and how support can be found. Advocates say the tone matters. The messaging is intentionally positive and inclusive, avoiding clinical language and focusing instead on belonging and shared responsibility.
That combination of positivity and peer credibility has resonated with students in other Maine schools as well. At Brunswick High School, junior Nicco Bartone said it can be more helpful to talk through some issues with someone your own age, someone who might be experiencing the same pressures.
“There’s just some issues that it’s more helpful to get the opinion of somebody who is... directly experiencing it themselves,” Bartone said. Another Brunswick student, Grace Clendening, pointed to the quiet struggles many teens carry daily. “Everybody has stuff going on, and not a lot of people have someone to reach out to,” she said.
Adults involved with the program say that’s exactly the point. Students shape school culture every day, what feels safe to talk about, what is stigmatized and what kind of support seems normal or possible. That’s why peer-driven models can have reach that adult-only approaches sometimes struggle to achieve.
“The students really set the culture of the school,” said Sources of Strength trainer Matt Hofmeister. “So, by not including them, we really miss the mark a lot of times as adults.”
National evaluations of Sources of Strength have found increases in help-seeking behaviors and stronger perceptions of adult support, outcomes that align with what Maine schools report anecdotally. Still, advocates stress that peer-to-peer programs are not substitutes for clinical care. Their impact depends on sustained adult involvement, administrative commitment and the availability of services when students do reach out.
Even so, as Maine grapples with persistent youth mental health challenges, and limited access to care in many communities, programs designed to strengthen connection are increasingly viewed not as optional enrichment but as essential infrastructure.
At Medomak Valley, the impact may not always show up as one dramatic moment. It appears in quieter ways: a student realizing they’re not alone, knowing who to turn to, spotting a message in the hallway that lands on the right day or having a conversation that might not have happened otherwise. In those moments, Sources of Strength becomes what it is designed to be, a lifeline built from relationships, reinforcing the idea that mental health is not built in isolation, but together.
Jim Leonard wrote this article for the Midcoast Villager.
Source: Public News Service
