By Abby Yium

STEPS-A is a new curriculum put in place by the administrative team at Lincoln in an effort to educate freshman students about stress and anxiety and how to manage it. According to the  STEPS-A guide book, this curriculum is a type of dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) learning that was created by Dr. Marsha Linehan, to help adolescents develop and practice social and emotional management skills. 

The Oregon Healthy Teens/Oregon School Wellness student surveys have shown that Lincoln students deal with more stress, anxiety, and depression than students at other Oregon high schools do. At Lincoln, 21% of students ranked their mental health as poor and 33% of students have chosen to skip a day because their stress and anxiety are so high, they needed a mental health day. 

While this is the first year of STEPS-A at Lincoln, the DBT skills are not unfamiliar to the students at Lincoln. DBT has been taught to all grades at Lincoln and has improved the students handling of emotions. 

“For twelve years, Lincoln’s Dialectical Behavioral Skills program has significantly lowered student-reported depression and anxiety,” Jim Hanson, Lincoln’s school psychologist said. 

Unlike physical health, mental health isn’t addressed as frequently, so it requires special diligence to identify and help students. Teachers and educators, including Barbara Brown, have to find a way to learn and teach this curriculum so that students are engaged. 

Brown, an English teacher for 18 years at Lincoln, has taken on the responsibility of teaching her freshman leadership and inquiry (FLI) class this STEPS-A curriculum for the first time. 

“We’re kind of a pilot program for STEPS-A,” Brown said. “We don’t really know yet how effective it is.” 

Since this curriculum is so new, this makes it critical that students give feedback about their opinions learning this material so Lincoln’s administrative team can develop a program that can help as many Lincoln students as possible. 

Freshman student Naiya Patel is learning the STEPS-A material in her FLI class. Patel agrees with the material of STEPS-A learning but has some concerns about the atmosphere of mental health learning at Lincoln. 

“Yeah it is [important], but we don’t really talk about anxiety and depression here,” Patel said.

According to national surveys done by the STEPS-A curriculum, almost 80% of children and teens ages 6 to 17 in the United States did not get the mental health services that they needed.

“I 100% believe that social and emotional health is a number one concern for all kids of all ages,” said Brown.