Colorado’s Safe2Tell reports decline in student suicide tips during pandemic

Fewer Colorado students turned to Safe2Tell during the 2020-21 school year to seek help because someone they know was having suicidal thoughts, making it the first time in at least nine years that the system has seen a decline in such reports.

Safe2Tell recorded 2,305 reports about students at risk of harming themselves, which is down 40% from the 3,821 reports it saw during the 2019-20 school year, according to the program’s annual report released Tuesday.

“We’ve seen an overall decline because of the pandemic,” said Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.

Overall tips to Safe2Tell also dropped for the second consecutive year as fewer children and teens have used the anonymous tip line to report concerning behavior during the coronavirus pandemic.

Just over 11,380 reports flowed into the program during the 2020-21 school year, a 45% decline from the 20,822 tips made the previous year.

The decline in tips is likely due to the fact that most of Safe2Tell’s messaging about the program occur in schools. Most reports are also about incidents that happen in schools as well, Weiser said.

Safe2Tell increased its outreach to students through a marketing campaign on television, radio, Snapchat and Instagram after noticing the decline in tips and to do so it used $120,000 the program received via the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act.

Safe2Tell was created to address youth violence in Colorado but has become a primary way students reach out for mental health help in recent years, with suicide becoming the most common reason they report to Safe2Tell since the 2013-14 school year.

Safe2Tell named a new director, Stacey Jenkins, to replace former director Essi Ellis in March.

Safe2Tell has seen the number of potential suicide reports increase at least since the 2011-12 school year. They even rose 4% during the 2019-20 school year despite a decline in overall tips to the program.

For the second year, Safe2Tell released more detailed data about the outcomes of its reports. However, the data still remains limited and doesn’t reveal how often police respond to mental health crises.

The Denver Post reported last year that police are among those called to respond to Safe2Tell reports — including when a student may be in a mental health crisis —, but that the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, which oversees Safe2Tell, does not track how often this occurs.

Safe2Tell reported this year that in most cases the outcome to a suicide report involves parents being notified and local officials — either law enforcement or schools — performing a welfare check. A person was referred to mental health counseling less than 40% of the time, according to the annual report.

The program provided more detailed data about what happens when a person contacts Safe2Tell seeking mental health help for themselves, but these reports make up a minority — only 107 tips — of the overall reports.

Of those 107 reports, 32 resulted in a person receiving counseling services; another 6 people were transferred to the state crisis line; and 15 people were hospitalized. The remaining 54 tips had “other outcome,” according to the annual report.