Teens face a lot of tough questions as they grow up, and a new local website hopes to help answer them.

Launched by the Healthy Park County, Ask11.org features a rotating set of frequently asked questions and answers, with both the queries and the concept coming straight from local youth.

In her regular conversations with area students, Wendy Morris of Healthy Park County said she’d hear common themes, “all in the form of a question.”

Morris would ask students what they considered to be important and find herself responding that, “‘Oh, yes, these are great questions,’ and then never answer them,” she said. That didn’t feel good to Morris.

“Like, let’s just be genuine here: Let’s answer these to the best of our ability,” she said.

Enter Ask11.org, which tackles 11 different questions at a time — a nod to the fact that Park County is number 11 on Wyoming license plates.

“It unifies all of us,” Morris said of the number. “... This is for Cody students, Powell students, Meeteetse students — all of us.”

Current topics on the website include vaping, underage drinking and drugs plus online bullying and why COVID has “made life so hard.” One even tackles the age-old question of, “What is there to do around here?”

The site advises that there’s plenty of fun to be had in the area, laying out 23 options that range from writing in a journal to rollerblading to raking a neighbor’s leaves or making a scavenger hunt with friends.

“Try something new!” the site suggests.

In the site’s first days, Morris said analytical data shows that a question about what makes a good friendship or relationship has been the most-read so far — along with a few about mental health.

“We know that our students are stressed. Anxious and depressed and stressed — we’re hearing that quite a bit not just from our students, but from the teachers and the administration,” Morris said. Why that’s the case, Morris isn’t exactly sure, though she thinks the pandemic has brought more awareness of the stress being experienced by area youth. If it is a case of heightened awareness, “I’ll take that all day,” she said. “I mean, the more we can reduce [the] stigma around having all of these really important conversations, to me, is for the best.”

Sometimes it can be a challenge to get up the courage to ask a tough question, which is one reason why the Ask11 website is built around a header that reads, “Asking for a friend …”

“We never want to put anybody on the spot,” Morris said, adding, “They might be asking questions for themselves, but they can ask for a friend as well.”

One of the questions asks, “is it normal to feel sad all of the time?” Ask11 explains that, while being in a funk sometimes is normal, feeling sad all the time without it being tied to a particular thing probably means it’s time to talk to a trusted adult, like a parent, teacher or school counselor. 

The page includes a link to not only Healthy Park County’s webpage on mental health, but also to a Mental Health America webpage explaining the difference between sadness and depression, plus a YouTube video that features singer/songwriter Billie Eilish talking about her own mental health and the importance of reaching out for help when needed.

Morris said she approached local subject matter experts to help answer the questions that she heard from local youth, and then added in other resources. Each answer is relatively short and includes a list of actions, plus links to apps, Spotify playlists, TikTok videos, “whatever is cool and relevant for them,” she said.

To ensure the content is, in fact, cool and relevant, Morris said she has a group of students review everything before it’s placed on the site. She also asks for feedback whenever she addresses students.

“A lot of times, they’re really honest,” Morris said, and that’s what she’s looking for.

“It’s been a good experience so far,” she said last week.

While area parents got a heads up about Ask11 in early November, Healthy Park County has just begun to promote the site, including by handing out postcards and air fresheners and putting up signs in high schools that include QR codes to the site.

Morris noted that the digital age has made it easier than ever to distribute information.

“When I was in school, I was like looking through magazines, or we had to go to the library,” she said. Today’s students “have all these resources in the palm of their hands, sometimes bad for bad times for good,” she said. “But if we can help navigate them to the most appropriate answer, and hopefully resource and be a little bit better about whatever’s going on, then, hey, maybe they can help themselves and maybe help somebody else.”