Peninsula Suicide Prevention (PSP), a critical crisis intervention service serving all of San Mateo County, has conducted mental health and suicide prevention presentations for upperclassmen at M-A for the past few weeks. PSP was formally known as StarVista Crisis Center, which closed down in August of 2025. The organization has reemerged as a part of the social services program at the Felton Institute.
PSP’s presentations emerged in the 1960s under the leadership of founder Charlotte Ross, a pioneer of the suicide prevention movement. Since then, rampant social media use among youth has only heightened the necessity for new types of mental health services. “There was a need for proactive rather than reactive mental health work,” Walter Ng, Community Engagement Supervisor at Felton Institute, said. “We updated the presentation so that it was more engaging for students, but also getting directly in the classrooms and creating a small intimate type of conversations, where it really feels safe to talk about mental health and suicidality.”
Ensuring that students stayed focused was another key purpose when designing the presentation. “If you did a really dry PowerPoint with just slides, it’s not interesting, and the kids start kind of dozing off,” Ng said. “So we ended up creating a presentation that is for our generation and your generation now, where it’s very much media focused, videos, interactive things.”
Some of the activities included paper plane making, with a focus on asking classmates for help. Students also worked together in small groups, discussing warning signs, coping mechanisms and stress. “It was about finding activities, finding conversations where you get to talk to each other instead of telling me and creating a space where they’re talking and eliminating the stigma,” Ng said.
“I think it was pretty engaging,” junior Aryn Roodman said. “I thought the presenter did a good job and I hope people were focused.”
Naturally, the topic of suicide and mental health is uncomfortable for many. But PSP hopes to make the subject less unsettling. “I think, as a society, we don’t necessarily bring forward this conversation. However, everybody navigates mental health every day, and this is not just one person’s experience,” Ng said.
One of Ng’s strategies to help make students feel safe is sharing his own stories. “I think showing and talking about my own experiences in terms with family or with friends, kind of highlights for them, ‘Oh, I’m not the only one,’ or ‘I know somebody who is going through this,’” Ng said.
Many students felt comforted throughout the presentations. “I definitely felt cared for and invested while watching it. I think this presentation could really help kids who need it, especially in helping prevent problems before they get worse,” junior Julia Maggio said.
One of the intended takeaways from these presentations has been to promote 988, the national Suicide Crisis lifeline. The number provides 24/7 support from counselors in English, Spanish, and American Sign Language. Callers have the chance to communicate over the phone or text. “988 is the thing I say the most in that presentation, because very few people know what 988 is,” Ng said. “Yes, I talk about warning signs, risk factors, what stress means for them, and there’s a lot of interactive activities and mechanisms. But all that isn’t really for anything if they don’t remember that there’s a space for them to call somebody.”
988 isn’t the only resource the presentations hope to showcase. Allcove, a network of mental health centers for youth, helps create a safe environment for students by providing physical, mental, familial, and educational support. “It’s a place for [students] to go that’s outside of school,” Ng said. Additionally, The Trevor Project, which serves LGBTQ+ youth, also continues to provide their own crisis services, even though their 988 specialized lifeline was recently shut down by the Trump administration.
PSP hopes to continue to grow and have long-lasting impacts on the youth of San Mateo County. “We are basically trying to get into as many schools as possible to get ahead of the curve, because mental health doesn’t end in high school. It continues the rest of your life,” Ng said.
If you are experiencing a crisis and need support, call 988.
