Children’s Hospital Colorado expands school mental health support as complex cases rise

A growing partnership is bringing specialist assessments, staff training and clinical consultations into Durango schools as educators face increasingly complex student mental health needs.

Children’s Hospital Colorado is widening its role in Durango schools as local educators report a rising number of students facing serious mental health problems that school teams alone cannot always manage. Lauren Henry, a psychologist with the hospital and a member of its rural schools consultation team, said Durango School District’s behavioural health staff have been dealing with a growing number of complicated cases that exceed the support available inside schools. The need comes at a time when nearly one in three students in the region say a friend has told them about suicidal thoughts, and only about 35% to 40% say they would turn to an adult if they or another student were struggling.

Those figures were among the data presented at the second Southwest Colorado Youth Mental Health Symposium, held in late September at Fort Lewis College, where about 100 clinicians, educators and administrators gathered to discuss ways to strengthen youth mental health care. The hospital also pointed to a broader strain on services across Colorado: suicide remains the leading cause of death for children in the state, and mental health visits to Children’s Hospital Colorado’s emergency department rose 38% between 2019 and 2024.

The partnership between the hospital and Durango School District began in 2017 with a high-acuity assessment team designed to evaluate the students with the most urgent needs and connect them with appropriate care. Around 2022, private funding allowed the programme to grow, and last academic year it expanded further when hospital staff began co-leading a weekly district behavioural health team with school leaders. According to the programme summary, that work has helped build district-wide support through a Multi-Tiered System of Support, a framework schools use to organise help into layered levels of need.

At the base level, Children’s Hospital Colorado offers professional development for school staff. The middle tier focuses on intervention planning and progress monitoring, helping schools match evidence-based supports to a student’s behaviour and needs. The highest tier is for individual consultation and full evaluations, including assessments that can lead to recommendations for both school accommodations and support at home. In the 2025-26 summary, the hospital said it supported 13 schools and educational programmes, completed 24 comprehensive evaluations, carried out 23 consultations with individual education plan and multidisciplinary teams, and made about 70 consultation, coaching and direct-service contacts.

Henry said the hospital is now working to extend its reach beyond Durango, while also looking for ways to involve the wider community more deeply. The team includes psychologists and school counsellors, and can also draw on specialists such as a neurologist, a developmental psychologist and a sleep psychologist when a case calls for it. Henry described one student who was initially unable to stay in class because of behavioural difficulties and was later diagnosed with autism through the programme. After a care plan was put in place, the student was able to remain in the classroom for the full day. “That story sticks with me the most when it comes to what different expertise that we can bring in and combine it with the school-based expertise that’s already there,” Henry said.