It’s no surprise that mental health in American teens has seen a recent decline. In fact, according to national data, about 15 percent of middle and high school students experienced a major depressive episode in the last year, and more than a third (about 37 percent) reported persistent feelings of sadness.

Similar trends are on the rise in northern Michigan, says Dave Mengebier, president and CEO of the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation (GTRCF), which serves Antrim, Leelanau, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, and Benzie counties with a mission to improve the quality of life in those communities. “The foundation has been very involved with youth issues throughout its 31-year history,” Mengebier says in this week's Northern Express, sister publication of The Ticker. “We were aware from all the work that we do in this space that we had really reached crisis proportions.”

To solve a crisis, you call in the experts — but while peer-reviewed research and best practices provide valuable data to consider, who better to offer insight into teen mental health struggles than teens themselves? “We wanted high school students to really take on that leadership role and ask their peers what’s causing their anxieties, stress, and depression, and where they turn to alleviate those things,” Mengebier explains.

Enter: The Youth Wellness Initiative (YWI). Hosted by GTRCF and financed through the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, the program aims to uncover the primary causes of poor mental health in local adolescents and then use those findings to help inform available resources and community planning. Read more about the initiative — and find several other stories on local mental health issues — in this week's Northern Express, available to read online or on newsstands at nearly 700 spots in 14 counties across northern Michigan.