Her alarm goes off at 5:30 every morning.

She gets up, gets

ready and then tends to the every need of her two year old

daughter, Gracie. In a rush to get everything done before she has to

take Gracie to daycare and leave for work, she almost forgets to put

her shoes on. “Life with a two year old is never boring” she told me

with a chuckle. She walks through the set of double doors every

morning before the sun rises. Coffee in hand, Jess Otero enters her

office in the counseling center and gets to work. She is the

department chair of the counselors at West Hills Middle School in West Jordan, Utah.

Her job has many different

descriptions and

responsibilities, especially

being the department chair,

she has a lot on her plate.

However, her most important job is being able to tend to those students dealing with

anxiety, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. Afterall, “Sudicide is the second

leading cause of death for kids fifteen to twenty four year old Americans”(save.org).

Jess sees at least one child a week who has had suicidal thoughts or plans. She told

me how she very rarely has a kid come to her and tell her about these thoughts they’re

having. It is often concerned friends, or even the parents of these friends who contact

her and let her know. Assessing the mental state and wellbeing of the child is very

important, and so she uses a test called the Columbia Suicide Severity Scale. This

scale was developed by experts to assess the severity and ideation of a person's
mental wellbeing. Knowing this information will help her to know what the child needs

most, which helps her go home, knowing she did what was best for them.

When Jess isn’t at work, you’ll find

her at home with her husband Jeremy,

and playing with Grace. She said that it’s

really hard as a counselor to be able to

be fully present at home, and not think

about work. Especially when she has

these kids who want to harm themselves.

She cooks a homemade meal almost

every night, then spends the rest of the

night cleaning the house up.

Jess works closely with a new app

that was developed for teens in Utah,

called Safe UT. Safe UT is an app that provides free crisis counseling 24/7, an

anonymous tip line for any situation in which a student feels unsafe, and a crisis call

center. Their website defines the app as “a statewide service that provides real-time

crisis intervention to youth through live chat and a

confidential tip program – right from your

smartphone.(SafeUT.org) Jess said “I wish teens

used it more often. It can be used to report weapons

on school property, worries about suicide of a friend

or even themselves, and pretty much any situation a

student feels unsafe in.” Jess gets notified when a tip has been made about someone

or something in the school, and then goes from there. If it’s a severe situation the police

will be contacted by Safe UT and will be dispatched out to the school.

Jess didn’t always want to be a counselor. All she knew is that she loved kids

and wanted to work with them in some way. She said she wanted to be a lot of things.

Pediatrician and forensic psychologist were a few examples she named. After going into

psychology, and working in educational psychology at the college level, she knew she

could mesh the best of both worlds in order to find the career that she was looking for.

She got her bachelor's degree in social work, and then continued on to get her masters

in educational psychology. Her background in social work has come in handy many

times while she's on the job, and even though she didn’t go into social work as a career

she’s very thankful for the knowledge it gave her.

There is someone in the counseling center every day, sometimes even more than

once that deal with depression, and thoughts of suicide. “With 16% of Utah’s teen

population having depression” (KFF.org), you can imagine these cases happen quite

often. Jess said that on the rare occasion that there is someone in a state of crisis,

where she feels like they can’t be left alone, she’ll call parents, involve the school’s

resource officer and even the school's psychologist, and MCOT or the Mobile Crisis

Outreach Unit. “The safety of the kid in my office is my number one priority. If there is a

student who I feel (and you can usually tell pretty well) who is in crisis, I immediately

assess the situation.”

Counseling (especially in schools) is a career that comes with so many ups and

downs. You get to see students at their highest highs, and their lowest lows. But it is so
rewarding to be able to help those kids at their lows and be able to see them grow and

be happier. Even with the hectic and crazy life that Jess lives, she wouldn't trade it for

the world. feeling that school counselors are both professionals but also can be there as

friends to the student if they just need someone to talk to.

Works Cited:

Published: Nov 19, 2020. “Mental Health and Substance Use State Fact Sheets.”
KFF, 20 Nov. 2020,
www.kff.org/statedata/mental-health-and-substance-use-state-fact-sheets/utah/#:~:
text=As%20shown%20in%20the%20figure%20below%2C%2016.6%25%20of%20
adolescents%20and,and%207.1%25%2C%20respectively).

Healthcare, U of U. “SafeUT Crisis Chat & Tip Line.” SafeUT Crisis Chat & Tip Line
| University of Utah Health, 2018, healthcare.utah.edu/hmhi/safe-ut/.

cdc.org, save.org. “Suicide Statistics and Facts.” SAVE, 2021,

save.org/about-suicide/suicide-facts/.

Letter of intent:
My intent for this profile was not only to show the importance of school councilors
but also to show that these mental health professionals are real people too. That is
why I included detailed descriptions of her morning with Gracie and what she does
when she gets home from work. I also wanted to emphesize that these school
councilors do more than just one job. Jess does anything from schedule changes
to helping children in mental crisis situations to teaching grade specific suicide
classes. I got the feedback to include some Utah specific statistics and so I added
a statistic that 16% of Utah teens have diagnosed depression. I used a mix
between professional writing stratigies and slightly relaxed stratigies to add to the