TeenSceen: How it Works...

How Teen Screen Works

TeenScreen lures kids as young as 9 years old into taking the suicide survey by offering them free movie passes, food coupons, "I completed TeenScreen" stress balls, pizza parties, and candy bars - if they consent to the procedure.

One tactic TeenScreen officials use is to sell the child on the suicide survey first, and after they have the child's agreement, they later contact parents.

TeenScreen Project Coordinator, Kathleen Cigich, was quoted as saying: "We found early on that sending out letters directly to parents is prohibitively time consuming and gets a low response rate. We thought, why not go to students themselves and offer a $5 video store coupon to anyone who brings back a parental consent form within a two-day turnaround period. It works. Our response rate is extremely high."