Chute Foundation works to help at-risk youths

For most parents, coping with the suicide of a son or daughter would be unthinkable.

But when Terry Chute’s son, who recently had graduated from Whitefish High School, took his own life in 1999, the Whitefish father emerged from his grief by building a foundation that helps reach out to other at-risk youth.

“In the aftermath of that, together with a lot of his friends, we decided we wanted to do something to try to make sure that other families didn’t have to go through the trauma that we were going through,” Chute said.

Later that year, the Nate Chute Foundation was born, a charitable organization dedicated to funding programs that support youth mental health programs and help prevent suicide.

In honor of its namesake’s well-known love of snowboarding, the organization’s annual fundraiser of the year will take place March 19 and 20 — the Nate Chute Banked Slalom and Boardercross at Whitefish Mountain Resort.

The competition features about 130 contestants from the United States and Canada, raising money to support youth support programs in public schools throughout the region.

“We started doing small things in the community, bringing in guest speakers, paying to send people to trainings,” Terry Chute said. “We’re in year 17 now, and it’s slowly grown since then. Right now, we’re providing support for suicide prevention and other types of activities for a number of school districts throughout Flathead County.”

Montana’s suicide rate has consistently ranked among the highest in the country, hovering at roughly twice the national average for more than a decade.

According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, it was the highest in the nation in 2014.

Statewide, suicide was the leading cause of death for youths aged 10-14 and the second-highest cause of death for those 15-44.

Because middle and high school can be a difficult adjustment period for youth, one of the organization’s primary efforts is the Student Assistance Program. Chute said Whitefish High School approached them with the idea of growing the program.

“They focus on specific topics in grade school. Kids are referred by their parents or counselors or teachers,” Chute said. “In middle school and high school they self-refer. They’re there because they want to be.”

Released last December, the state’s annual youth risk behavior survey found that more than 18 percent of Montana’s high school students said they had seriously considered suicide in the last 12 months. Nearly 9 percent had attempted suicide in the past year.

The Student Assistance Program has grown throughout the past decade after former Bigfork High School psychologist Robyn Bissell helped spearhead its introduction.

It has since been implemented throughout the county’s school districts, including Kalispell, Columbia Falls, Somers and Lakeside.

Whitefish High School’s French teacher, Jen Villar, also serves as the school’s program coordinator. With a background in social work, she got involved in 2008 because she wanted to have more one-on-one conversations with students outside the classroom environment.

“A lot of it is about creating healthy relationships, figuring out how to cope with problems better, to connect with people, to be less judgmental of others,” she said. “It goes back to realizing everyone’s going through stuff in life.”

Students can attend the meetings after school or during a class period. While Villar said some students are willing to share “heavy” subjects — homelessness, family violence or the loss of family members — it provides an open space to talk about anything bothering them in their lives.

“The topics that come up can be stress about homework, or feeling overwhelmed, or problems between friends, boyfriend-girlfriend issues,” she said. “But we all show up here and they have to remember to be kind to one another, because even students or adults who you don’t think they have something going on, they may. It’s a good reminder.”

Students self-refer, but those who get into trouble for drug or alcohol use can opt to join in lieu of a suspension.

At the end of the eight-week group session, each student fills out an anonymous evaluation. Those have been a powerful validation of the program, Villar, said.

“That’s the most amazing part of it. What the students fill out there is very profound. Sometimes the facilitators, we sometimes feel like the group wasn’t really processing this, that they gave really superficial answers,” she said. “You think the kids are just trying to not be in class, and then you get this evaluation at the end and you realize they’ve been processing all their emotions on the inside and it’s been really meaningful to them. That’s what it’s all about.”

The Montana Suicide Review Team’s 2015 annual report identified a need for increased student resources such as the Student Assistance Program, along with more suicide training and awareness in schools.

The Nate Chute Foundation offers suicide prevention training sessions throughout the community, with a focus on school faculty.

“It’s a one-day training on learning how to ask people if they’re feeling suicidal, and what to do in response to that,” Chute said. “A member of our board works with a lot of schools to put on those trainings.”

The organization also supports the Youth Suicide Prevention Project, which works to increase the availability of counselors and licensed therapists to young people aged 21 and under. For those concerned about a young person in their lives, it provides free one-hour classes on recognizing the signs of a suicidal person and supportively intervening.

The foundation also funds stipends for school facilitators working outside their regular school hours and provides up to eight weeks of free counseling services for students without insurance who don’t qualify for Medicaid.

Each school has a slightly different approach to guiding students through difficult times, but Chute said they have all been grateful for the support the foundation provides.

“We continue to hear those stories. ... We’ve also heard from juniors and seniors in high school that are kind of on their own, come to us and tell us what a difference it’s made in their lives,” he said. “We’re just happy to facilitate whatever they think is going to work in their school to give kids life skills.”

Reporter Sam Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.