- I'm always worried about every kid.

I'm worried about Idaho kids.

(suspenseful music) Right now for Idaho and in small town, anywhere you go, parents would not comprehend the percentage of kids that are vaping.

- Everyone vapes, if they were to go after every student who does it, they would have to go after the entire school.

- And once you start vaping and get that nicotine addiction, it's easy to pick up a marijuana joint, it's easy to get a prescription pill addiction.

- And the drugs that are available are constantly changing.

Counterfeit prescription drugs that may have fentanyl in them.

- We have kids who respond quite dramatically and at times in life-threatening things to THC, to alcohol.

These illicit substances literally rewire the brain in a way that could be there for decades to come.

- We are in a legitimate youth mental health crisis.

- [John] Depression, anxiety, suicidally, self-harm have all been on the rise since 2007.

- The most recent Mental Health America ranks Idaho 49 out 50 states for youth mental health.

- I think kids are self-medicating.

I think kids are more solitary.

- I think that the mental health crisis is driving the substance abuse.

- We started seeing kids having more and more mental health problems, and oftentimes that correlated with drug and alcohol abuse.

And then in about a year's time, we had a couple of student suicides and that was really hard.

- The adolescent brain is chaotic enough, but adding an exogenous neurotransmitter-like substance, it's a recipe for cognitive, behavioral, and psychological disaster.

- It's not a rite of passage.

- It's certainly easier to make bad choices now.

You don't have to leave your bedroom to connect with bad people.

- And I think people are finally starting to realize just how extreme the situation is.

I always think of it as those old arcade games where you're bopping the alligator heads and they're just like, bop, bop, bop, and then just keep coming.

But we have to get to a point where we're not just chasing alligator heads, where we're considering what's happening before that.

- Is the government gonna fix this problem?

No, they are not.

- We are not gonna treat ourselves out of this problem.

Can we start preventing it rather than just responding to the crisis?

How do we make this the best possible place for kids?

(bright music) - The idea until very recently was we need to get kids and families into the system to get them help.

And we know that for most kids, the juvenile justice system does not provide better outcomes for them.

If we can take the behavior, look at the underlying causes of the behavior and help the whole family, we're gonna have a much better result.

- Building strong connections between the school and the family, if students know that their school and parents are working together, that people in the community care about 'em and support 'em, they're less likely to start into having substance abuse problems.

- This program here is a vision of what we should be doing across the entire nation.

Everything we do every day is to give that next kid that next level of hope.

We don't know their futures, but I know they're much brighter from having us than had they not had us.

- Welcome to Save My Family.

Thank you so much for coming and for loving your kids and wanting to learn about their lives.

We leave them with a plan of things for them to do, so that they're not getting into drugs or social media addiction or meeting dangerous people online.

(ambient music) - Kids feel such a sense of safety when they are at the Idaho Youth Summit.

Something that some of those kids have never felt.

- [Megan] The beauty of an upstream approach is it helps us get ahead of the problem.

We're not waiting for crisis to occur.

We're actually trying to stop it before it starts.

The data was telling them, this is what's leading to this.

And they were able to focus on it and go.

- And when you ask anybody in the Marsing community to step up for a kid, the answer's always yes.

(bright music) - [Child] Woo-hoo!

(children laugh) - The power is in us coming together.

- There is no shame in asking for help.

- [David] Parents are the number one anti-drug there is.

- Spending time with your kids, knowing what your kids are doing, who they're with, keeping track of prescription drugs in your home.

- Build connection into your life.

If you have kids, build it into their lives.

- Once you deal with mental health crisis, that will greatly help the drug crisis.

- The best way for a school district to start addressing drug abuse issues really is in a community effort.

- Having family dinners and talking together, going outside and going for a walk.

- Make them feel seen, make them feel heard, and give them other resources, so they don't feel like they have to resort to substances.

- You know what a good rite of passage is?

Staying sober and using your full potential of your brain, chasing your dreams.

That's your rite of passage.

- Kids are our best investment when it comes to creative ideas.

And if we let them loose long enough to play out their ideas and communicate with one another, we would have a terrific momentum towards creating a drug and alcohol-free youth society in the state of Idaho.

(water splashes)