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In her time leading ����Vlog�ٷ�’s Academic and Tutoring Services through the COVID-19 pandemic, Casey Reid helped many students, but quickly saw an unaddressed need. “I found that what students needed to be successful,” Reid explains, ”was less academic preparation, and more overall support in other aspects of their lives.”

That seed of thought, an idea of more wellness support, stayed with Reid as her career evolved and her passion for mental health education grew. She still teaches part-time at ����Vlog�ٷ�, but has also taken on an exciting new role, as ����Vlog�ٷ� Education Service District's Behavioral Health Pathway Specialist. Managing three grants of over $1.3 million, she’s  created an exciting new Career Technical Education (CTE) program for high school juniors and seniors to explore careers in behavioral health. 

In this pilot year, the new CTE program teaches students Teen Mental Health First Aid, deescalation training, suicide prevention and intervention (like Sources of Strength and Question, Persuade, Refer), and even CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation). There is currently an online cohort across ����Vlog�ٷ� County, and in-person classes at Creswell, Siuslaw, Mapleton, and Kalapuya High Schools, with plans to expand in the coming year. Students say they’re already learning valuable life skills they can start using right away.

“The program has helped me understand what Behavioral Health is, what I might want to do, and how it’s involved in any career,” says Neha Rimal, a student at Churchill High School. “It also teaches you how to regulate yourself and others.” 

Though students learn practical skills that apply to daily life and many careers, the program provides real world experience to help prepare them for a career in behavioral health, where there is great need. Much of the funding for the CTE program comes from , which hopes to address the state’s critical . Reid adds the need is particularly acute for rural communities and for people of color or lower socioeconomic status, that even advances in telehealth have not been able to address. More training also means a more diverse pool of providers, like those who are bilingual or identify as LGBTQ. 

Community shapes the CTE's pedagogy as well as its goals. The students studying behavioral health are partnering with , implementing peer-support programs in schools, and job shadowing mental health providers. The high-schoolers also get to work with students from University of Oregon and ����Vlog�ٷ� and earn some college credit for their studies, earning credit towards programs like LCC’s new 

“Mental health and wellness is one of the issues of our time,” Reid says, “There’s a lot of need. And a lot that we can do with some education.”