How Do School-Based Services Help Students Thrive?

What does it mean for children to have access to mental health care?

Children now are growing up with access to technology their whole lives, arising new experiences and views on the world that increase anxiety, depression, and present new socialization issues. How do we ensure they have adequate support and mental health care while ensuring their education isn’t impacted? Colleen O'Connell and Autumn Brown from Pawnee Mental Health’s School Based Services educate us today on what it means to have mental health professionals in schools partnered with counselors and other support systems.

Have questions, thoughts, or stories you want to share? We would love to hear from you! Shoot us an email at brightminds@pawnee.org

Your mental health matters. While this podcast is meant to foster connection, understanding, and hope, we know that some conversations may bring up difficult or emotional moments. If you need support, help is available and you don’t have to navigate it alone.

If you or someone you know is in crisis or experiencing emotional distress, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Free, confidential support is available at any time.

To learn more about Pawnee Mental Health, visit us at https://www.pawnee.org

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome back. I'm Jonathan Saypal.

SPEAKER_04 0:05

And I'm Michelle Naliu, and this is Bright Minds and Brighter Days Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

For every episode, our goal is to bring you real conversations that meet real care. Every episode of Bright Minds Brighter Days reminds us that hope changes lives. Now you have the opportunity to turn hope into action. Join Pawnee Mental Health for inspiring hope and help September 10th. Together, we can ensure help is available whenever someone needs it the most. Get your tickets today at Pawnee.org.

SPEAKER_04 0:35

Well, we are in August, which means school's about to kick off.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

I'm very excited today. We have two guests to talk about what school-based services are. We have Colleen O'Connell and Autumn Brown. Colleen, would you like to introduce yourself?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Sure. Thank you, John. My name again is Colleen O'Connell. I am the school-based services manager for Pawnee. And I my job consists of working with people like Autumn here and having them go into the schools to provide services. So I'll let Autumn go ahead and introduce herself too.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

I'm Autumn and I am one of the school-based therapists right now, predominantly based out of the central region with USD 475 Junction City.

SPEAKER_04 1:16

So since we're going to be talking about school-based therapy and school-based services, can you tell us a little bit what is school-based services? What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

So for Pawnee, what we do with our school-based services is we provide both therapy and case management within the school building. By doing so, we allow for access for kids who might not be able to get to our standard office-based services or that parents live a long ways away and can't officially take that time off to get them to the appointment and then get back. So we provide the services right there in the school. We work with the uh staff at the school to really collaborate and meet the kids' needs in all the areas that we can. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

I'm really excited about this episode, but mainly because, you know, I don't remember all these types of services back when I was going to school.

SPEAKER_04 2:02

I'm going to say the only one that comes to mind for me is a school, you know, a school counselor. Right. And that's what everybody thinks. Are you a school counselor?

SPEAKER_00 2:08

No, we are not the same as a school counselor. Um what we do is actually provide therapy itself and or skill building itself within the school building. School counselors typically concentrate on academics and how to help a child progress uh educationally. They also provide some social emotional learning, but they're not as extensive as we are when it comes to the therapy or the case management support.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Right. So you so you focus more specifically on uh like mental health diagnosis then?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Not necessarily the diagnosis, but how to help them with symptomology. So how to help them when it comes to the challenges they face due to their mental health diagnosis overcome the challenges they face within the school building or in life in general. So talking about what they face, what are some common mental health challenges that students face in school these days? I would say the biggest one we see is anxiety. Um something that I learned in a training that I actually give is the median range for anxiety is four years of age. Which means we've got a lot of littles that have anxiety, and anxiety doesn't just go away when you get older. So that's probably the largest that we see. We see a variety though of many other um mental health disorders.

SPEAKER_04 3:17

So talking about anxiety, you may not be able to pinpoint exactly, but why do you think it's anxiety? Is it social media?

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Like what So I knew you would ask about social media, and I was gonna hand this to Autumn, but I'm gonna say something, and then Autumn, if you have something to chime in, please share as well. Um the stress that comes with immediate gratification and the everybody can see me and everybody know what I'm doing piece of the media definitely contributes. But we've also been through some traumatic times in the last few years, and that's exasperated. In fact, I looked at a study, I want to say they said since COVID happened, it has doubled in our youth, um, anxiety and depression, um, and seeing the symptomology within them.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

Autumn, do you have anything you want to do? I would say we're about on the same thing with as far as COVID. Um the median, I know we do elementary, we do metal, we do high school, but that median age right now, we are six years from COVID. Those kids are all in school.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

Those kids are all some of them didn't go to school for two years, some didn't go to school for several years. Um, because the fear was there, and that fear just produced so much more anxiety than what we would typically see or what we seen several years ago.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yeah, I I mean I've definitely experienced that personally, you know. I I have a 15-year-old who's, you know, he's going to tenth grade next year, and you know, he used to be really outgoing. Like we he was the kid that we used to always have to tell, hey, you don't have to talk to everybody. And for whatever reason, I mean I even ask him, Have you made any new friends? You you you have your same group of friend friends you've had since, you know, sixth, seventh grade, and he's like, ever since COVID. You know, he's just not putting himself out there making new friends. He's he's good with the friends he has, and and so I mean, he's a little older, so he's able to actually tell me that, you know, ever since then.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Well socialization also looks very different these days because we have the ability to talk online. You will talk to kids and they t you parents are like they just isolate in the room and they don't talk to anybody. Well, that's not actually accurate. If they actually look at what their kids are doing online, that may be where they're the most social. They may be less social in school. And again, another piece of COVID is we look forgot how to be social and we all got very comfortable into our Yes, and and that um online experience, and it's not the same. It's and it can come across, I mean, we deal with the bullying pieces of online and we deal with um the repri ramifications of that in the way that our kids experience um childhood in general.

SPEAKER_04 5:54

So I think that's also hard because I think we grew up differently and not having that technology, so kind of give a little bit of grace to, but kind of know when to reel it back in and oh absolutely. So are there any signs that parents and educators should be watching for that could indicate that maybe they need mental health support?

SPEAKER_03 6:12

Um, so some of the signs that we see is is that pure isolation. They're not engaging with family, they stop playing games, they stop texting friends, um, they stop wanting to go to things at school, they stop wanting to go to school. We have a lot of school refusal that we see because the anxiety is so high. Um, they don't want to be there, they don't want to be in class. Um, grades falling significantly. If you've got a a child that was an A B student and all of a sudden they're coming home with D's and Fs and they're just barely surviving um grade wise, that's definitely a sign to say, hey, maybe something else is going on and there's something for us to look into.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

I like that you said don't they stop. So that's the key thing when you're looking for mental health challenges is that there's a change. So if you see big changes, you want to pay attention to that and you want to look at that a little closer.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

And so I I know y'all um I know y'all spoke or we talked about the changes of, you know, after COVID, but have y'all noticed any kind of returning to normalcy in the past four or five years?

SPEAKER_00 7:22

I think it's a new normal. I don't know that it's turn returning to normalcy. I think it was a worldwide effect, right? All of us experienced it. And when you have something like that, you don't just go back, right? Right. But a new normal is getting there. People are traveling again, people are out mingling again, there's there's interchanges. Um it's just the kids learned a lot more online. And so it's they're changing a little differently. Um and that you'll see at different kids. Different kids are very active and outside and playing, and they love that their sports are back in play and all of that, and that is huge for our youth, those extracurricular activities and their ability to engage in life in different ways. Um, and that definitely supports good mental health, is is having that, but that's different for every kid.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

And that that's that's the only reason I kind of brought that up, is because you know, just talking to people around our community, uh people that are in education, you know, I've I've I've heard them right before school was uh letting out this past year um saying that students were coming up to them saying, Hey, are uh are is there anything that's gonna be going on in the summer where we can kind of meet together in groups, like they're wanting to do things in person. Oh, to keep them active and not not just you know, versus you know, how you think, oh kids just wanna, you know, they go home, they're summer break, it's a me time. Right. And so I was really excited to, you know, hear something like that, you know, because it's it's kind of like, hey, you you they want to be out, they want to be social.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

And now with the summer coming to an end, school getting ready to start, going back to social media. So how do things like social media, academic pressures, and other technologies affect a student's mental health?

SPEAKER_03 8:53

I think social media is can be a good thing. It can also be a pretty detrimental thing. Um social media does keep us connected, as we all learned over the past several years. Um I know I have friends that live in different countries that I'm able to still talk to and stay connected with. A lot of the kids, especially with me and 475, um, heavy military population, those kids have friends all over the world. Every different state, they're still able to be connected. However, th the anonymous posting, the picking at things, the sending private messages, or the opposite side of that, ignoring people online, um, is pretty detrimental to how kids manage that, handle it. As far as like the academic, that's even influenced by social media. I see, well, at the high school level, they take these AP exams every year, and every year when kids get great the scores back, well, I got this score, I got this score, and you start seeing kids that, well, I only got a one or I got a two. So I guess I didn't meet the level that everybody else did. So they start seeing that pressure, they start seeing that piece, or somebody says, Well, this is what I got on this project, or I have this huge project due, and it turns into, I forgot. And now I'm stressed because that's due at 8 a.m. in the morning and it's 10 PM and I was just online and figured out I forgot all of this.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah, and then and then you hear things like you know, like screen times, you know, and if all you're doing is, you know, scrolling, you know, I I I r I heard recently that, you know, as as a person scrolls, like two things happen uh automatically, and it's like the the first thing that happens is is you judge. You know, you're you're judging, is this post worthwhile? Do I want to like it? Do I want to share it? Do I want to comment on it? So you're constantly judging every time you're swiping. If you're doing that fifteen hundred times a day, you're just judging, judging, judging. And then the second thing that it would have you do is it causes you to compare. And you and you and you cannot stop that because of I I think they called them like mirror neurons in your brain. It's it's how we um, you know, how we're able to put ourselves in other people's shoes, right? So if you're doing that fifteen hundred times a day and you're constantly judging, you're constantly comparing, like, like that has to be doing something to us mentally.

SPEAKER_04 11:20

I was actually just getting ready to chime in and say the comparing part, because I hear a lot about that. Of, oh, what was your GPA? My GPA was this. Well, we both play baseball. How come you got to play game? You know what I mean? And it's the whole comparing. So, yes, a student getting a one versus somebody else getting something else, like it may reflect of oh, maybe I should have studied harder, but then, you know, well, this I'd never see this person study, but how come they always do so good? It's just no different than comparing, you know, somebody else's clothes to your outfit and what they're wearing and what they're driving. And I mean, we all do it. It's the comparison, but I think especially as teenagers, and probably you guys see it in younger years too now, that's that plays a huge role.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

The comparing is a big piece, but I liked that you mentioned the brain science and the mirror neurons because it's also dopamine chasing. It's it's like an addiction.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Um, it is chasing that hi, what's gonna make me feel better when I see this, and running from that comparison piece, trying to see something that's not that. Um so it's it's a combination, and that's why scrolling is so harmful.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

And then and then, you know, if you think two to four hours a day, and I think it comes out to like eighty-eight day eighty-eight days out of the year. That's that's that's substantial.

SPEAKER_04 12:31

So how do we even help with anxiety in social media? That's a very good question. I mean, I think as a parent, we all think, okay, we're just gonna cut it off, no more of this, but they're gonna find ways to do it. Whether it's let me borrow your phone, or you know, and I'm just gonna go to the library and use the free Wi-Fi and log in this way. I mean, they're sneaky. They're gonna find ways to do it. So how do we help with that anxiety piece?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

I don't know that there's a exact answer for any one given person. I think it's about helping them see the world as bigger than just one thing. It's helping them get that. I I talk to um staff a lot of times about self-care and wellness and how we fill our buckets, but it's a helping kids see there's more than just this one piece, helping them see big picture, helping them believe in themselves, trust in themselves, feel good about themselves, and feeding that as much as you can to help balance it. Because everyone, not just people with diagnosed disorders, has anxiety. We all deal with it. And it's really about balancing, it's about that self-care, it's about that wellness and how we take care of ourselves.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

That balance piece of understanding that we all have it is something I use a lot, especially with my older teens, because they look at a diagnosis a lot of times as something that is it's only me. I'm the only one. But we all at some point we're anxious about something. It doesn't matter if it's driving down the road, if it's what's coming up, um, family-wise, schedule-wise, we all have something, and I think it's helping them understand that this is normal and it's learning to just manage where you're at, just be where you're at, manage it, find the good in what you're doing or something about you that you can use to kind of support yourself um and be happy where you're at.

SPEAKER_04 14:14

Can we touch more on that? So when you actually open up and talk to kids about that, do you feel like they're receptive to that?

SPEAKER_03 14:19

I feel like they are. Okay. Um is everyone a hundred percent? No. Um, that's the same as anything else. No one's always gonna be receptive, but I believe that yeah, a lot of times they are. When you start breaking it down into normal everyday tasks, I get anxious when I have to drive through Kansas City during rush hour. Oh, so you have anxiety. No, I don't really have anxiety, but I do. I have anxiety because we all have it some way.

SPEAKER_04 14:45

It's just in a different form in everyone. Yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

It just looks different, and that's because we're all unique individual people, it's gonna look different no matter which way we try to frame it.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

So what what sort of impacts have you seen um that school-based services have helped students with when it comes to learning or their attendance or behavior? I mean, have you have you all noticed anything like specific that you are really good at helping with?

SPEAKER_00 15:13

So there's I mean, there's a lot of growth. Um I'm gonna talk about four specific areas. Um many of our schools, not all, but many of our schools are part of what's called the Mental Health Intervention Team Grant. Um it is a grant that is provided for districts within Kansas to help hire school-based liaisons to help uh improve and build mental health supports for the students in the schools. Okay. And four of the areas that we uh re get data on and we report on every year is improved academics, uh, improved attendance, decreased internalized behaviors, and decreased externalized behaviors. And all of those, and I had had this on a piece of paper and had meant to bring with me, but did not bring with me, but all of those are uh astonishing when we show those reports. If you ever go in, you can Google it, um, look at the year-end reports and look at some of the reports that have come in from all the districts that are doing school-based services and working through MHET. Um it's it's it's some great improvements. But I think in general it's just seeing the kids grow and and embracing life again and in different ways.

SPEAKER_04 16:20

Do you ever feel that there's gonna be a setback though? So, like we're coming out of summer. So maybe a student that you guys had worked with, you know, in the previous school year, and then summer comes along, does it just come to a halt for you guys and then we pick up in August again when we start again, or is it something that's continual?

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Um, so school-based services for us is continual. Oh this is medically necessary. This is no different if you have high blood pressure or you have a broken leg, or you have migraines, you have something that you need daily or weekly or monthly medical care for, you're gonna go get it. Doesn't matter that you're on vacation. If you need it, you're gonna go get it. Um so we do the same thing with school based. This is medically necessary, this is their mental health.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

So summer breaks, winter breaks.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

We're there all the time. We're just not in the school setting. We are in the office. So I do spend eight to five um routinely, Monday through Friday, uh, during breaks. The only times that I mean we take our breaks because we also have to take care of ourselves at some point, but they're also very aware that we're gonna be out for a few days, but other than that, we're gonna be there. Okay, and we're gonna stay weekly if they need weekly, and we're gonna stay bi-weekly if they need it, with that staying in mind that families take vacations. And of course, we support that, we encourage that. Um we just schedule around them and we're there. We're not gonna close the door and turn our backs on them. Um our school-based case managers are great at being able to get them to the office because transportation and ability for parents to provide is still it's still there. It doesn't matter that it's not August to May. Um so we have case managers that will go and pick our kids up, bring them in, let them get therapy, let them get case management, and still continue to be supported.

SPEAKER_04 18:13

So since we're not having those breaks, do you guys have a positive impact story and or something you want to share of a success story or anything?

SPEAKER_03 18:23

Probably have several that um you could use over. Um I've seen kids go from really struggling to even be able to interact, talk, um, find motivation. Why do I even want to be at school? Why do I want to do these classes to sharing excitement of graduating high school, um, getting a degree path, getting accepted to college, and being one of the first people they came to to tell me that. Even after they graduated from services, they just they wanted to come and share. And those are the those are the stories that tell you, hey, maybe you're doing something that's you're doing something right, you're helping somewhere. But that's just one of this is I'll be going into my fourth school year this year. Um, and I've went from case management up to therapist, and that's still the pieces that you hang on to, those positive stories. And even the ones that struggle, if you get one day where they use a skill that you teach them or they share, or a teacher comes to you and says, Hey, I seen them doing this, those those single times are wins because every every progress matters.

SPEAKER_04 19:42

Do you have a success story from maybe because I just heard you mention teachers? Teachers, principals, just staff at school that come up and tell you guys, hey, I've noticed this change and this is amazing or anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

We do get that quite often. Um I meet with staff quarterly at minimum. Um, but I I'm always I always have an open door. If I'm there and I don't have a door closed with a kid, I have an open door. Um staff can come to me and I have had them come and say, Hey, you should have seen what happened. Like all of a sudden we took a pause, and when we took that pause, we were able to redirect. Um, maybe we were getting ready to throw something, and now we've paused and we set it down and we just use the words, I'm mad. And being able to just verbalize that for a lot of kids is huge. So, yeah, we get the stories from the stud from the staff. Um, part of the mental health intervention team is we do progress reports twice a year, and the schools do let share with us what some of those are, and some of those are huge on the impact that we're making. Um it's probably a big relief, too.

SPEAKER_04 20:51

To know that they have you guys in their corner or just a little added support in the district.

SPEAKER_03 20:55

It is, and building that relationship takes time, it's not an instant. You don't walk into a building and you all of a sudden have this great perfect working relationship, and it takes time and it takes effort. And I think I've been in three four different, four different school districts over the years. Um, before I came to just doing therapy in uh 475, and even the short times that I was there, you could see that progress. Um, and you hear it at the end of this year, it was we need to keep this going. Like this is what we need for our kids because they do have the access, and without the access, a lot of these kids wouldn't get mental health help.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

So, what do you think are some of the biggest challenges with uh providing mental health services in school?

SPEAKER_00 21:42

I think the number one challenge of providing mental health services in the school is space in the school to for those. Um our schools are already, you know, packed full and for them to find it, but uh the school districts that we work with do. They find those space because they recognize how important these services are. And we have some. districts where we're there uh more than five days a week so we'll have maybe therapists there for five days but we might also be bringing in case management for a couple other days in that school week so it's it's getting bigger and bigger um the bigger schools that we're in that obviously have more days um but another challenge is just helping the families know that the services are even available um because that sometimes can fall to the side when we've got so many other pressures on the school side to get their academics where they need to be but we have some fantastic school employees that talk to these families help them know that there's these other supports that can really um benefit their children and then they get them talking to us and we we help them understand what it is and get them going.

SPEAKER_04 22:41

So places here in Kansas that don't have the grant andor outside the state that don't have something like this, what are resources? So if a parent or a school is like okay like we can't manage this we need somebody else's backup do they just contact their local community mental health center?

SPEAKER_00 22:56

I would say that'd be a great first step. Call the local community mental health center see what is available around there see if they're open to chop talking because I can tell you I get calls all the time from schools that don't really know what this is and I will just talk to them and kind of help them understand. And even if they're not ready to maybe take that step where we come into their buildings it gives them I mean we have so many programs as a community mental health and with Kansas going to the C C BHC model have even more programs that can help within the communities and just to explain what C C BHC is that's a certified community behavioral health clinic which basically means we're holistic care. We're really trying to do wrap around services in so many different ways and help families whether they're clients or not throughout our communities so we can give them about those services we can tell different school districts even if they're not ready for school based services we can tell them about all the other community resources that are available for mental health supports good all right well one final question um that I ask every guest uh I'll start with you but I'd love to hear the both of your answers.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Uh Colleen what gives you hope for the future?

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Oh golly um hope is the children. They're our future. I mean if we're helping the kids they're gonna give us a very bright future and that's that's why I work and do the work that I do every day because I love seeing them grow.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

I have to say I'm right there with you. Um I actually started off moving towards adult therapy um and I fell in love with just the outlook the innocence that comes of what's next and what can be and like I said watching these kids grow over the years. Um man some of the kids that I started with are getting ready to go to middle school and they were little bitty and just barely used to not being at home when I started so getting to watch them really grow thrive even even though the changes are hard change is necessary um we all know that and they're adapting and they're adaptable.

SPEAKER_04 24:59

I love it. Thank you guys for being a part of this thank you for having us thanks.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Michelle and I would like you to know pain is temporary but giving up is permanent and you don't have to face it alone.

SPEAKER_04 25:12

If you or someone you know is in need of care, hope is available. For local listeners you can call Pawnee's Crisis Hotline at 1-800 609 2002.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

For our national listeners you can call or text the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

SPEAKER_04 25:30

Other mental health resources can also be located on our website Pawnee.org.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

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