Andy Duran had been a member of the Lake Forest and Lake Bluff communities for about five years when the towns were struck with a string of tragic student suicides. 

With the overwhelming feelings of grief consuming the community, Duran wanted to make a difference.

He joined Linking Efforts Against Drugs (LEAD) as Chief Executive Officer hoping to increase its role in helping teens live healthier lives.

“We highlighted some issues and we said we’re gonna work on this together as a community—no one to blame. The world is a tough place,” Duran said. 

Duran wanted to hear from the students in the community and what they needed in order to feel more safe. 

“I went to schools and did focus groups with health classes and just said, ‘Hey you know I want to acknowledge that I’m young and I’ve been in Lake Forest for five or six years, but I don’t know everything that’s going on,’” he said. 

Duran realized students had resources at the school including the social workers, but they struggled to find support outside of school hours. 

“I mean students had very clearly told us that they really wanted to have a text line that’s anonymous—Where people would be available all the time, where they can talk to a counselor,” Duran said. 

After hearing the feedback from students, he began to research tools that could provide this kind of help, but to his surprise, he found nothing.

So, he created Text-For-Help.

Text-For-Help is a 24/7 texting service that allows adolescents to reach out for emotional support completely anonymously. Within three minutes or less, the individual will be connected to a licensed and trained professional psychologist, social worker, or counselor. 

“Today, I think we’re still the only ones that are fully 24/7, fully confidential, and that every single text is responded to by a fully licensed counselor. It’s people who are very very skilled and experienced and licensed which makes a big difference in the support they can provide,” Duran said. 

Duran said he was surprised when other counties in the area were interested in his Text For Help tool. 

“When we first started doing it at LFHS, we were still a community grieving and recovering from those suicides,” he said. “We really created it just to be used here in Lake Forest and Lake Bluff. We really hadn’t planned to take it anywhere else,” he said. 

Soon, neighboring communities like Highland Park and Deerfield were reaching out to Duran about his tool and integrating it into their own school districts. The tool spread to parts of New Trier, the rest of Lake County, and parts of McHenry County. 

“It just started happening organically,” Duran said. 

Soon, LEAD’s Text-For-Help tool spread nationwide. 

“As we were doing that and getting a little press around it, other communities across the country started hearing about it and contacting us,” Duran said. 

In response to the nationwide demand of this tool, a team of LEAD members, including  Duran, had made a similar version of the Text For Help tool, just on a larger scale.

“Even before it went nationwide, hundreds of students were using the tool,” Duran said. 

To increase their support, LEAD began to work with the Illinois Youth Survey, a self-reported survey administered in school settings to gather information about health and social indicators.

“As years went on, we started having to give out the Illinois Youth Survey and LEAD directly wanted to work with those results because the Illinois Youth Survey was focused on drugs, alcohol, tobacco, with some social and emotional things,” Assistant Director of Educational Services at Lake Forest High School John Maher said.

In recent years, LEAD has sought to provide increased mental health support in response to  escalating depression and anxiety among teens “especially since the pandemic,” Director of Educational Services Patrick Sassen said.

Duran said he has seen an improvement in the amount of kids using drugs and alcohol.

“There’s less kids drinking, less kids vaping, less kids doing those things then there were five or ten years ago for sure,” Duran said.

However, he said he has concerns about the increase in mental health issues.

“Not just during the pandemic, certainly that has exacerbated it, but even before that there was a significant concern and arise in adolescents mental health issues,” Duran said “In pretty much every community, whether it’s a high achieving community and suburban community like Lake Bluff or it’s in the city or it’s rural Montana, we’re seeing very similar trends in all those demographics.”

Duran said he has hopes for LEAD to continue to provide helpful services well into the future. 

Anybody interested in being involved as a student perspective for LEAD or Text-For-Help contact Andy Duran at [email protected].