Mountaineer
Dec 20, 2023
Dec. 20—Children's mental health is a growing concern in
"After COVID, our elementary schools were very concerned about students and the lack of mental health support at that time,"
So, school leaders allocated a portion of federal Covid relief money to hire additional counselors as teaching assistant positions. But that money dried up, leaving elementary schools with no dedicated mental health staff this year.
"That has proved to be a position they want to hold on to for dear life," Barker said.
"They check in with them, they eat breakfast with them, ask 'How was your evening? Did you get your homework done? Why don't you sit with me for a little while before you go into school?'" Barker said. "If they're having a rough day or just need someone to talk to, they can go pull them out of class."
And to add another layer to the challenges faced at the elementary level, students are dealing with problems long thought to be reserved for middle and high school students.
"We have students that are very knowledgable sexually, and that's to do with them gaining access to devices,"
Benson said addressing issues at the elementary level is important because it's an age where teachers can still reach kids and make a difference.
"It's too late in high school," she said. "If we don't take care of these things now, these are children who will end up suffering."
"There are children at my school who have witnessed or experienced scenarios that I cannot fathom or rationalize," he said.
Filling the void
At
"She was an absolute Godsend. She was in our classrooms every day, all day," Benson said.
Benson described the typical day of a counseling TA: welcome a Kindergartener off the bus and have breakfast with him to provide an easier entry into the classroom, spend time with a third grader who had missed numerous school days, then transition to working with students in a fifth-grade classroom.
"These children came leaps and bounds," Benson said. "Losing her this year — I can't even begin to say what that did for us trying to figure out how to support students."
Benson said elementary principals all recognize that they need somebody full-time in the schools.
"Our central office does, too, but it comes down to money," Benson said. "This funding is critical."
Without a counseling TA position, Benson relied on the new School Resource Officer to help fill the gap by spending one-on-one time with students who needed support.
"Thankfully, she has absolutely rocked it," Benson said. "She eats lunch with kids, takes them into her office, sits in classrooms."
The need for trained help
County commissioners funded SROs for every elementary school in the county for the first time this year. But an SRO can only do so much for kids dealing with many challenging issues.
"We've got a lot of kids with trauma, and trauma looks very different," Benson said.
She described one student who is very impulsive and disrupts a lot, but further evaluation discovered that he lived with one set of grandparents who treated him like a soldier, then another family home where anything goes.
"Now they're trying to find a happy medium," Benson said.
Some students treat school as their safe space. Other students are greatly affected by outside crises, and it can hinder their educational performance, said Jonathan Valley Principal
"I want my students to come each day to an environment in which they feel safe and eager to learn," Shelton said. "Having a mental health counselor would bolster our efforts to achieve that goal."
Benson said the solution begins with addressing the issues in the moment, which builds all-important relationships between teachers and students.
"If a five-year-old is screaming, yelling, and hitting you, there's an underlying reason. We have to do something with it right then and there," she said. "Everybody knows it's about relationships with students. Once they have trust in you, they will share. But when you have kids that are living in a world of discord, it takes a while."
"If our stomachs hurt and ache, we seek medical guidance for a regimen to cure the cause of the pain," she said. "When our emotions and inner feelings hurt, we need to be able to seek that same treatment from mental health providers."
King has seen all too well the result of students in crisis.
"In moments and days that students experience crisis, it often becomes transparent that their basic needs or safety have been compromised. That can manifest in fear-based behaviors that can change moods, sleep patterns, ability to focus, and overall energy levels," she said.
If the school system can secure funds for similar counseling TA positions at the middle school level, King said she'd use this person in conjunction with counselors and clinical social workers.
"If a student is in an active crisis, we could then use our mental health professional to administer mental health first aid within our own walls and exponentially increase response time to the crisis," she said.
Benson said helping children through trauma will only pay dividends to
"As a community, if we want our children to be self-sufficient, independent, and give back to our community," Benson said. "Then we need to be able to address their needs in elementary and middle."
Training provides insight into trauma
A state grant has funded one staff member from each county school to participate in a five-day Trust-Based Relational Interventions training.
TBRI is a series of trauma-informed interventions that target some of the fear-based behaviors seen in children with histories of trauma. It also helps develop durable skills, enabling students to build on their existing coping skills.
So far, eight county representatives have participated, including King and
"Sometimes kids have been through stuff that is so difficult and challenging, even as babies, it puts a pause on their development," Mascarelli said. "It takes folks who understand and build a connection to be able to restore that."
The problem, he said, is that one negative interaction takes many positive ones to undo.
"Between birth and one year, there are thousands of interactions where kids develop trust and connection. In situations where that does happen, it takes hundreds of positive interactions with adults to improve that. We can undo it, but it takes effort," he said.
Mascarelli said it begins with fulfilling kids' basic needs, like feeling safe and secure.
"You can talk at a kid all day long, but if they're not feeling safe, secure, connected — forget it. You could have the teacher of the year in there, but it's not going to fly," he said.
Luckily, the kids who truly need this one-on-one attention are a small amount of the overall student population, Mascrelli said, and the way to reach these kids is clear.
"We'll deliver a social-emotional piece in order to give the academic piece because they're connected. Experienced teachers and good teachers get that," he said.
Mascarelli said the district could quantify the impact of the counseling TAs by looking at the number of nervation incidents, discipline referrals, and suspensions.
"We're not going to punish and suspend kids into being better," he said. "We have an opportunity to connect these kids in healthy ways with positive adults and people who care about them and make them feel safe and connected. That sets them up for future success."
___
(c)2023 The Mountaineer (Waynesville, N.C.)
Visit The Mountaineer (Waynesville, N.C.) at themountaineer.villagesoup.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
