GOLD STANDARD: NA-FC Schools counseling initiative focuses on students' mental health
The Evening News and The TribuneAug 17, 2017
In the spring of 2016, school staff went to
"We were looking for opportunities to make [our counseling department] better, to better impact the school as whole and in a concise way and, as assistant principal, I wanted a way to get the counselors the recognition they deserve,"
Afterward, building staff decided to "embark on this journey to reshape our counseling department," as Givens put it.
According to the
A steering committee was formed, comprised of the school counselors, facilitators and building principals to help guide the school towards the
Students were surveyed and asked "questions about goals and aspirations, personal struggles, relationships with people in the building," Givens said.
Counselors were also asked to keep track of how they spent their working hours.
The steering committee compiled that data and brought it to a larger group -- the
The changes that were made paid off and the school achieved its goal, obtaining its first
A DISTRICT-WIDE MODEL
With the major success of the program at
"This is a very time consuming and in-depth model of what we are going to do in the entire district," Jensen said.
The first step, surveying students, starts this fall.
"We are going to go through the same process... We are going to do a K-12 comprehensive program. It will be district-led instead of a building-led model," Jenson explained.
A FOCUS ON SOCIAL, MENTAL HEALTH
The data collected from the student surveys helped guide the
"We had a lot shortfalls," Jensen said. "Mental health resonated. We really needed to address our students' mental health."
According to Givens, on the surveys students reported feelings like "I'm not always comfortable," "I don't always feel safe," "I don't always feel appreciated" and "I don't always feel that people are comforting."
"They are loving their [guidance] counselors at high rates, but don't always know who to go to," Givens said.
Jensen confirmed that the
"Kids struggle," Jensen said. "They come to school with a lot of issues ... the environment they're living in, loss of a parent. They come to us with a lot of needs and a lot struggles."
NEW PARTNERSHIPS
To help students with those challenges, the district is partnering with several local agencies to bring licensed professionals into schools across the district.
LifeSpring and Family Ark will pilot a program, with LifeSpring offering services at
"We are going to start slow," Jensen said.
The set-up at each school is a little different -- as Jensen put it at Monday's board meeting, they are "building this plane as [they] go."
"Our goal is to start off small and by them building up their caseload, they will be able to sustain themselves," he said.
Those schools were selected using the same parent-reporting database that officials tapped into to begin with, according to Jensen. Basically, a higher number of students at those schools seem to need these resources.
"We at Family Ark have a long history of serving kids in our community and sometimes there is a barrier for families because of transportation or busy schedules. We were delighted when the school asked for a partnership,"
Glotzbach said that, at least at Slate Run and
"A peer-driven setting can work wonders if you have the right person leading the way," according to Glotzbach.
Either the student's insurance, Medicaid or grant money would pay for services rendered, Jensen said.
"We are excited ... there are situations where students have made comments about self harm or behaviors ... and just having that resource person, being able to bounce ideas off them or being about to collaborate with them is huge," Givens said.
These mental health professionals will work at the handful of schools in the district a few days a week, but the ultimate goal is for them to be available full time to students, a vision that could become a reality as early as
THE LILLY GRANT
Earlier this year, the district applied for a significant grant through
"Lilly was looking for schools to come up with an innovative K -12 counseling program that would be different, support social and mental health and college career readiness," Jensen said.
The district opted to focus heavily on social and mental health, triggered by the data from the
Though the district centered on mental health, professional development of counselors and preparing students for higher education or their career.
The winner of the grant is announced at the end of the September and if NA-FC Schools wins, it means a total of
"...the money would help tremendously would speed up the process but we are moving forward regardless of if we get the grant or not," Jensen said.
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