No more waiting: Schoolcraft High School brings mental health support to campus

SCHOOLCRAFT, Mich. (WOOD) — Artwork from Schoolcraft High School post-pandemic is a clear indication to the visual arts instructor that students need more resources.

Jaime Hilaski, the regional Teacher of the Year for 2023-2024, gave a presentation to state education leaders showing art from her students both pre- and post-pandemic.

"I talked about how art naturally ties into social-emotional learning. Before the pandemic, student artwork was a lot of lighthearted stuff. After COVID, I found students were using art a lot more to show their voice and the stressors they were going through. I saw a lot more anxiety, depression, just natural stressors of life coming through," Hilaski said.

The school social worker's job is to identify students who might need more support as they navigate those challenges, but the problem is connecting them to the right resources in a timely manner.

"We identified kids through connecting with them and our adults, developing wonderful relationships with our kids and our families," Principal Matthew Dailey said. "The feedback that we got as we emerged from the pandemic was that families were on six- to eight-month waitlists before they could get in to receive mental health support from a clinician."

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Dailey's team decided the best way to fix that was to bring the support in house. Schoolcraft now has an on-site mental health counselor who can help students right on campus. The counselor works closely with the school social worker, Shelby Simpson.

"We have a really collaborative relationship. We both carry a caseload of students. We both check in with kids each week, and then once they've been on my caseload for a certain amount of time and I realize they might need some more help, then I can refer them to our mental health coordinator, and she can help take over from there," Simpson said.

Dailey has been a principal for nine years in urban, suburban and rural districts. He acknowledged the privilege of being able to hire for a position like the mental health coordinator, but said the need is there.

"In an urban environment where I was before Schoolcraft, our ratio of (a school social worker) was about one to the entire high school or middle school population of 1,700 kids. We're fortunate enough to have adults here that we can put in front of kids to lower that ratio where, with our student support team, we have about one to 175," Dailey said. "The reality is we know better, we can do better and we want this to become an example of how to do student mental health better for kids and families in our community."

Dailey recalled a situation last year involving a student who was showing signs of ideation for self-harm and a teacher noticed. The teacher reported it to the student mental health team. Simpson, the social worker, did a quick intake. The staff conducted their risk and threat assessment protocol and worked with the family.

"(They) had access to the support they needed over the summer. When they returned to the school this year, we had that agreement that we were going to have constant communication with the family and the school and the mental health team outside of campus. Then we could take the student from there, get them in front of our student mental health coordinator and continue the levels of support they were getting when they weren't here in person," Dailey said.

Schoolcraft's addition aligns with an emerging trend in Michigan schools: Some districts are adding dedicated mental health counselors to provide a higher level of support.

Cedar Springs High School also has a dedicated mental health counselor on staff, who has helped with a new initiative called 'Every Student Known.'

"A lot of schools have guidance counselors to help with some social and emotional care and college and career readiness. What I get to do is meet with students in crisis," counselor Danielle Paoni said.

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The 'Every Student Known' initiative involves tracking interactions between students and trusted adults, like a teacher or administrator, and making sure every student is having those positive interactions in several categories. There are times, however, when a student has an obvious need for immediate help.

"Some students, that's a panic attack or self-harm or suicidal ideation. For some students, that's stuff going on at home, maybe a separation or divorce, and it just hits them in the middle of class and they can't move forward with their learning," Paoni said.

In Schoolcraft, money for COVID-19 relief that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer approved has helped cover the cost of bringing on a dedicated mental health counselor. Dailey said they have backing from the school board to use general funds if state grant money isn't available in the future.