Marsing Community Reviews Student Well-being Survey Data

On November 14th, the SW Idaho Communities for Youth Initiative hosted a Community Data Walk to share the results of the 2024 Student Well-being Survey that was completed by students in grades 6-12 in the Marsing School District this October. The Student Well-being Survey focused on understanding local youth’s experiences around overall well-being, mental health, and substance use.

The night kicked off with recaps of previous years of survey data and some reminders on the importance of upstream prevention. The 2024 survey findings were then presented. A particularly exciting update was the Marsing community’s success in reducing youth depression rates over the last three years. Community members then broke into small groups to dig deeper into this year’s data.

During the data walk portion of the evening, community members moved from poster to poster to explore key insights from the analysis of the survey data. Key risk and protective factors (risk factors make a negative outcome more likely, while protective factors make them less likely) were highlighted. The key risk and protective factors for mental health challenges and substance use identified in the 2024 survey data included teen stress, sleep, and meaningful relationships/connections with family support, school, and friends.

The data walk format encourages community members to not just learn about the data, but ask questions about the data, share their thoughts on potential causes and contributors to the data trends, and brainstorm prevention ideas. The night’s program was offered in both English and Spanish.

A Communities for Youth team member reviews data from the student well-being survey with members of the Marsing community.

Notes and feedback from the data walk will be shared back with the Marsing community soon, at which point the community will identify the top priorities for action. Based on the feedback, an action plan will be created and implemented to help tackle these priorities using a grant from Southwest District Health.

If you’d like to get involved in the exciting work in Marsing, please contact Tara Woodward at Southwest District Health. If you’d like to stay connected to the work of the SW Idaho Communities for Youth Initiative please sign up for our newsletter.