Blaine County organizations in recent years have embarked on multiple efforts to help kids improve their mental health and foster positive habits as concerns have arisen about rates of youth depression.
Things recently trended in a positive direction. Blaine County survey data released in late 2025 showed depression rates dropped from 27% to 23% among high school and middle school students surveyed since 2023, a difference of about 50 kids.
In recent interviews with the Express, experts discussed issues that can harm kids’ mental health and offered advice for combating them.
Connection and third spaces
Sarah Seppa, director of community engagement at St. Luke’s Wood River, explained that Blaine County is rural, whether it feels that way or not, and rural communities have unique challenges.
According to the American Psychological Association, rural youth have greater risks of suicide, anxiety and depression, all while living in communities with fewer mental health resources than urban environments. An APA article from last year cited poverty, lack of transportation and substance use as specific challenges affecting mental health in rural areas.
Since 2023, the Blaine County branch of Communities for Youth, a Boise State University program that partners with regional leaders across the state to study and mitigate youth mental health issues, has conducted well-being surveys at every school in Blaine County to understand the challenges kids face.
“Teens don’t feel like they have a sense of belonging or a sense of mattering within the community,” Seppa said, referencing survey data.
Seppa said that a lack of kid-friendly third spaces is contributing to children’s sense of disconnection in the community. Third spaces are areas besides home, work and school where people can socialize and connect informally.
“There’s a lot of teens congregating at McDonalds or Albertsons or places that aren’t really set up to have that capacity,” she said.
According to Seppa, county schools have programs to increase kids’ sense of belonging. Two notable programs are Wood River High School’s Sources of Strength, a suicide prevention program, and Wood River Middle School’s Houses program, where students build bonds and engage in friendly competition in Harry-Potter-style houses.
Janessa Graves, director of the Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho Rural Health Research Center, told the Express that many of the mental health struggles children face stem from overarching flaws and holes in rural health care.
“It’s not about families not caring, it’s not about schools not caring, it’s that the structure of our system does not serve kids well because access is the problem,” Graves said.
She said that health care provider shortages, transportation problems and inadequate school funding for student mental health needs are chief contributing factors.
Matthew Isbel, the Blaine County regional coordinator for Communities for Youth and a communications professor at Boise State University, said municipal priorities can also affect youth mental health.
“Do we build a park or do we build a condo,” Isbel said. “Do we have this piece of property on Main Street converted into something that is non-revenue generating because it’s a good space for kids to be able to connect or do we go with a contract that is going to be revenue generating for the city or the county?”
Achievement culture, sleep and depression
Matthew Leidecker, the director of facilities and community partnerships at The Sage School in Hailey, said the culture in the Wood River Valley has intensified since he was a kid, and now there is pressure “at every level.”
Isbel stated students have told him that “achievement culture” is stressful and difficult to live with. He said between school and extracurricular activities, many kids do not get home until the late evening.
“And then they might have homework,” said Isbel. “And when are we giving them time to be a human being and do the things that we as adults even crave after a long day, like sitting down and just having a conversation that doesn’t relate to all the things you have to do?”
Isbel also told the Express that children’s packed days can cause problems at night. Once kids fulfill their responsibilities, they want personal time, even if it’s late.
“By the time we come home and do all the stuff we have to do, it should be bedtime, but that’s then when I can go out and talk with my friends, or maybe play a video game with them,” Isbel said, paraphrasing student feedback.
Communities for Youth’s 2025 Blaine County survey data showed only 10% of students with eight hours of sleep or more reported depression symptoms, while students with less than eight hours of sleep reported depression at more than three times that rate.
To address achievement culture, packed schedules and lack of sleep, Isbel believes, parents and trusted adults need to step back and remind kids to live in the moment.
“There’s no real silver bullet way that you solve this, but we can make some conscious decisions about what we are not allowing for our kids every time we decide to add another activity to our calendar,” Isbel said.