Jessica Bedard remembers the first time she made a plan to kill herself: She was 9 years old and away at camp. "I just felt so sad and frustrated because I didn't know why." When she recovered from her first suicide attempt, at age 13, she told her gymnastics coach. He said she was looking for attention. "I walked away feeling stupid, like I couldn't tell anybody about it."

And she didn't-until just before her high school graduation, when she swallowed enough pills to land her in a coma for three days. It was only after she awoke that Bedard, the class salutatorian, spoke with a counselor for the first time.

MTV ads. Bedard's story is the mental health community's recurring nightmare. While teens are taking fewer drugs than they have in years, suicide remains a problem so entrenched that it is prompting the medical community to re-evaluate how it identifies and treats suicidal adolescents. The result has been a flurry of prevention initiatives, including an MTV ad campaign set to launch next year that aims to destigmatize therapy for depressed teens. And more than 500 schools are expected to offer "depression screenings" next year. Experts say the efforts are long overdue. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 8 percent of students in grades 9 through 12 attempted suicide in the past year. And in the past two decades, the suicide rate among children ages 10 to 14 has doubled.

At the same time, mental health professionals are in widespread agreement that many school-based programs, which could be a valuable gateway to diagnosis and treatment, simply aren't working. A study released last week found that barely one third of school counselors thought they could recognize the warning signs of a suicidal student.

Much of the problem, says James Mazza, a psychologist at the University of Washington, is rooted in schools' tendency to side-step discussions of psychological illnesses, which affect up to 90 percent of suicidal teens. Instead, some discuss suicide as a random, impulsive act-an approach that has proved to be flawed.

Kelsey Bartel, 16, says that her community in Pierre, S.D., avoided talking about depression and suicide for years-although nine kids committed suicide at her school. One was her brother. It was just a year after he died that Bartel tried to end her own life as well.

It is these sorts of tragedies that depression screenings, already used in at least 30 schools, hope to prevent. Students answer questions such as: Has there ever been a time when nothing was fun for you? Have you ever been so restless you just had to keep walking around? Students can meet with a counselor, who might address romantic breakups and other transitions that can trigger suicidal thoughts.

Teenage depression can be hard to spot. "There's this myth of the adolescent mood swing," says Kay Jamison, author of NIGHT FALLS FAST: UNDERSTANDING SUICIDE. "But even in the teen years, your child shouldn't seem like a different person."

Jamison urges parents to "Ask your child directly if he's ever thought of killing himself." And, she says, broach the subject by telling kids depression affects one fifth of women and one tenth of men at some point and may run in families, as it did in Bartel's. Then add, "Chances are, you won't get depressed. But if you do, you don't need to live with it."

Community awareness, says Jamison, may hel0p prevent conversations like the one Jessica Bedard, now 24 and married with two children, had with her gymnastics coach. "Suicide attempts aren't stunts," says Douglas Jacobs, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard University. "When you're suicidal, you can feel equally strongly about two completely opposing forces-the desire to die and the desire to live." And that, he says, is both suicide's specter and its beacon of hope.

WHAT TO ASK

** Is it "normal?" Teens and adults with depression may behave differently. Adults might be sad; teens may be agitated or restless.

** Are sleep patterns changing? Insomnia is not normal for teens; neither is staying in bed 14 to 18 hours a day.

** Is he/she withdrawing? Teens are less likely to pull back from friends than from family. If you're worried, ask your child's friends.