What is the name of your organization?
The Rural Behavioral Health Institute
What is the name of your solution?
Screening Linked to Care
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
SLTC and MARS: closing rural America's youth mental healthcare gap via technology-driven screening linked to same-day care in schools
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Livingston, MT 59047, USA
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
United States
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
In classrooms everywhere, students suffer in silence, their struggles masked by apparent success. Everyone assumes they are thriving. RBHI CEO Janet Lindow was one of those children; her academic achievements hid a battle with suicidality that went unnoticed. Following a decade of global health research, she returned to rural America, determined that a zip code should never dictate a child’s access to life-changing healthcare.
She confronted a staggering crisis: over one billion people worldwide endure mental illnesses (WHO), including one in seven US youth (NAMI). In 2023, 40% of US high schoolers experienced persistent hopelessness, and one in five considered suicide (CDC). For the ten million rural youth in America, geography is a life-or-death lottery. Two million experience mental health conditions, yet fewer than half receive care— and they die by suicide at a 61% higher rate than urban peers (CDC).
The root causes are systemic. Severe workforce shortages, geographic isolation, and economic constraints create vast care deserts, where health inequities perpetuate cycles of poverty. Existing systems fail because they are reactive, treating crises rather than preventing them. School-based technology can break this cycle by identifying symptoms early, flagging risks in real-time, and rapidly connecting youth to virtual care.
What is your solution?
MARS (https://vimeo.com/1194069510?fl=tl&fe=ec) creates immediate mental health support inside schools for rural US youth. The vision is simple: break the cycle of crisis response by meeting children where they are, and leverage technology to make early detection and ongoing care routine. Twice yearly, RBHI’s Screening Linked to Care (SLTC) program uses MARS to deliver universal mental health screening, same-day virtual care for at-risk students, care navigation, and psychiatric services to rural students. Built for SLTC, MARS, triages students’ results instantly and clearly, so any school adult can support a student. SLTC’s virtual design enables a small RBHI team to monitor and coordinate all steps with school staff in real time, ensuring no student leaves school without receiving support.
RBHI has also cracked the rural mental health workforce shortage: SLTC’s virtual nurse-led model extends psychiatric care into communities which lack providers. Free care navigation services ensure families understand next steps and how to find what they need.
SLTC is the only program built specifically for rural schools that bridges early detection and rapid connection to virtual care, giving under-resourced schools the tools to reach the kids no one worries about.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
In a rural U.S. classroom of 25 children, one-to-two students face active suicidality. Another four are experiencing severe mental health symptoms that disrupt their academics and relationships.
SLTC is designed to serve the six million students in grades 3–12 across rural communities where care is most scarce: over 70% of these areas face critical mental health professional shortages. Socioeconomic barriers compound the crisis: a quarter of rural children live in poverty, and over 40% qualify for Medicaid and free or reduced-price lunch.
Left untreated, these mental health conditions derail futures, leading to lower graduation rates, increased justice system involvement, chronic illness, and a life expectancy shortened by a decade or more.
SLTC changes this trajectory. This year, among 21,000+ participating students, 6% reported recent suicidality—and all received same-day crisis intervention before leaving school. Another 13% exhibited symptoms severe enough to require clinical care. RBHI’s care navigators help families access ongoing services for their children. Because SLTC is entirely free, geography and income never dictate a child’s chance to get help. As one counselor shared, “You see the relief from the student finally able to share their pain, and parents profoundly thankful for resources to support their child.”
