Schools focusing on mental wellness

The belief that mental health plays a key role in education is gaining traction at Kalispell Public Schools.

While schools already provide avenues to screen students for disabilities and assist struggling learners in reaching their academic potential — mental health is beginning to receive the same treatment.

Creating a system to identify and support youth with emotional and behavioral or mental needs, putting suicide prevention protocols in place and improve school culture are goals Montana Support, Outreach and Access for the Resiliency of Students (SOARS).

The program, now in its third year in Kalispell, is funded through a five-year grant administered through the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Considering a school’s traditional priorities of academics and grades, attendance and behavior, graduation rate and college readiness — it has been challenging to add another focus. Yet, mental wellness is increasingly part of the changing role of schools.

“Forty years ago when I started, there was the belief that’s not the job of the schools, that’s the job of the family. I wouldn’t argue that. It should be the job of the family — but it’s not happening in all families,” Kalispell Public Schools Superintendent Mark Flatau said. “We could throw our hands up and say, ‘not my fault,’ but that’s an inappropriate response. It’s our responsibility to teach the kids we have. Many of them come with issues stemmed around mental health and social emotional learning. We can’t turn our backs on it because if we do we’re also going to fail them in academic learning.”

“When dealing with trauma in kids, it is impacting their ability to learn. Unless we address that we’ll never be able to get the proficiency in math, or reading, or science.”

Showing the need to address mental health is the results of a survey given to a sampling of middle and high school students last year.

Montana SOARS Director Ronda Stevens said surveys are one of the few ways the public “can hear the student voice.” While some students may not take a survey seriously, the students that do makes the time away from class worthwhile, according to Stevens.

Thirty-three percent of students surveyed reported feeling so sad or hopeless they stopped doing some usual activities.

More than half agreed that students at their respective schools were teased or picked on. However, 66 percent responded favorably that students at their respective schools got along.

About 27 percent of students reported being bullied on school property and 19 percent bulled electronically. Encouraging to Stevens, was that 87 percent of students reported that there was an adult they could go to for help.

Over two years 278 people — including mental health providers, educators and parents — have been trained to recognize the symptoms of mental health, what kinds of questions to ask, how to approach youth, how to listen and provide support. These “first aiders” may also refer youth seek professional mental health providers or agencies.

“It could be a teacher in school referred a student to the counselor or social worker, or a person in a business downtown calls the school [saying] ‘this student in trouble,” Stevens said.

One of the goals in the third year of Montana SOARS is to put in place a system that will track referrals between agencies and provide better accountability. Currently, the only way to follow-up on referrals is if a school does the leg work in contacting the agency or student directly.

The referral system will help schools easily track what happened to a student after being referred to a service and decide the next step.

Last year, 13 percent of students received school-based mental health services. The goal is to increase that to 15 percent by the fifth year.

“Do we want the number to grow? When you’ve got a student population of 5,800 — 700 is not even close to what it really is,” Stevens said, noting that there are far more students not yet identified.

“When that number rises it tells us they’re receiving help for something that they need,” Stevens said.

Around 500 students were referred to community-based mental health services. Of that number, 188 students received services.

One of the top goals in the third year of the program is to put screening tools in place to better identify students who may have behavioral or mental health issues. The screening system will be piloted in three elementary schools.

“Every school can do it differently. A teacher may [screen] a whole class, a school may screen a whole grade, or a teacher may screen a child who is having some sort of issues,” Stevens said.

Stevens said the screener may be the most benefit for children who do not show outward signs of a mental health issues and fly “under the radar,” to get the attention they may need.

Hilary Matheson is a reporter for The Daily Inter Lake. She may be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.