For Michelle Schwarz, comfort came on four paws.

“My dog, my husband’s dog, came in from the living room and sat down right next to me and gave me so much comfort in that moment,” Schwarz told a classroom of Amboy High School students.

Schwarz was talking about cleaning out a closet of her husband’s clothing. Her husband, Blake Schwarz, died by suicide in March 2023. Blake Schwarz, 26, was a correctional officer at the federal prison in Thomson.

Michelle started speaking out about the difficult topic of mental health and suicide among correctional officers. She and Daniel Sward, one of Blake’s best friends, founded Paws for the Powerless, a nonprofit organization in Chadwick that trains therapy dogs, a year after Blake died. The organization’s name was from a tattoo that Blake had that said “Protect the Powerless.”

“I wanted to do something unique in his honor. I didn’t want his death to be for no reason,” Schwarz told the AHS students.

The therapy dog presentation, complete with therapy dogs Nyx and Hudson, was one of 11 sessions of the Amboy High School NAMI Mental Health Summit on May 4. NAMI is the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a national organization that provides advocacy, support and education about mental health.

The Amboy High School NAMI chapter is the first Lee County high school chapter, adviser and AHS teacher Emily Rose said.

“We are a NAMI on-campus chapter. Our goal is to spread mental health awareness, to promote advocacy and to promote mental well-being. Our summit today is about giving students opportunities to explore different ways to stay healthy mentally,” Rose said.

Rose said the summit and the founding of the NAMI on-campus chapter are focused on helping students tend to their mental health as much as their physical health.

“I firmly believe that mental health is as important as physical health. If we are not healthy mentally, then we are going to struggle, and I want these kids to not have to struggle so much,” Rose said.

Students chose to attend three sessions out of an agenda of 11 sessions, each offering options to recognize and deal with different mental health challenges.

One of those sessions was presented by Jamie Daniels, an AHS alumnus, who was paralyzed from the chest down in a horseback riding accident in 2022. Daniels and her best friend since childhood, Ashley Child, talked to students about finding their “lighthouse,” those people who can be counted on to always be there. For Daniels, Child was and is one of those people.

“When the dark thoughts came, she would let me say them out loud. She let me be honest and that, honestly, saved me,” Daniels said.

Daniels shared her experience of going from being an able-bodied person to being completely dependent on others and how that affected her mental health.

“Nobody tells you that it is a constant battle of survival mentally. You have lost yourself and your identity. I hadn’t just lost my mobility, I had lost the person I knew. My old way of living was gone. Overnight, I went from being an able-bodied person like all of you, who could walk, to somebody who was completely dependent on people to do simple everyday tasks,” Daniels said.

She urged students to talk to their “lighthouse” people and to be a lighthouse for others.

“Don’t bottle up those dark thoughts. Say them out loud to someone you can trust. It’s not weakness. It’s one of the bravest things you can do. Be that lighthouse for somebody. Let them say those dark thoughts and be their safe space,” she said.

Amboy High School Principal Janet Crownhart said recognizing and helping students recognize mental health and mental health challenges, in themselves and in their friends and classmates, and giving them ways to address those challenges, is vital.

“I think the biggest thing is that in schools and just in general, in life, kids aren’t putting a whole lot of emphasis on their mental health, and they don’t know how to improve their mental health,” Crownhart said. “With all of the stress in their lives and especially with social media and maybe some, not necessarily lack of support from their parents, but the parents who don’t know how to help them through some of the struggles that they are having, with school being that much different now than what it used to be, giving kids tools to improve their own mental health is really, really important.”