4 things to know about mental health support in schools

When children walk through a school’s doors, counselor Tinisha Parker, Ph.D., understands that they’re not just carrying backpacks and lunchboxes. She knows that kids are also shouldering invisible burdens like anxious thoughts, homelessness, food insecurity, bullying, traumatic grief, parental pressure to excel, or the emotional absence of parents who are overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Parker, executive director of student services for Gwinnett County Public Schools in Georgia, says many students face daunting challenges but haven’t yet developed the skills to handle their feelings and experiences. Schools, however, have a critical opportunity to address kids’ mental health and well-being, says Parker.

“Our educators are to understand that those dynamics are happening and that your kids are walking into your classroom and into your counseling offices with a lot of things in their backpacks that aren’t books and aren’t pencil and paper, a lot of underlying things that are going to get in the way of education,” says Parker, who is also chair of the board for the American School Counselor Association.

Now that a third pandemic school year is underway, parents should pay close attention to the mental health resources available at their child’s school. The American Rescue Plan, passed by Congress earlier this year, allocated billions of dollars for schools to return to in-person learning. Some of that money can be used to hire mental health staff, like school counselors and psychologists. But parents might be surprised to learn that hiring professionals is just one of several aspects that are vital to supporting students’ emotional needs. Other elements include an inclusive school culture and an approach known as social and emotional learning, which helps kids identify and manage their feelings, among other skills.

Here are four things parents should consider when it comes to their child’s mental health at school:

1. Check for stigma

While parents might acknowledge that their child struggles from time to time, some may fear that exploring the issue further will open the door to a formal medical diagnosis, a lifetime of treatment, and the sense that their child isn’t normal by society’s standards. This widely-shared stigma can keep parents from seeing signs of distress as well as opportunities for growth.

“Widely-shared stigma can keep parents from seeing signs of distress as well as opportunities for growth.”

Parker says schools encounter this stigma often. Sometimes it comes from ideas about gender, like that boys don’t need counseling, or to talk about their feelings. Cultural beliefs about what’s appropriate to discuss outside the family also play a role. Parents can confront this stigma partly by reminding themselves that their children face unique challenges and need fundamental skills to cope with them.

“Our kids today have to have…sophisticated resiliency skills that we never had to have until we became adults,” says Parker. “The fact that their childhood mistakes literally live on forever on social media and that they can’t grow past a mistake — that mistake is always there and usually in video — for it to be a constant reminder, is a different type of resiliency that our students now have to learn at earlier ages.”

The advent of social media means that time and space no longer provide a buffer separating kids from bullying or painful playground experiences. At the same time, children are confronting historic crises, including the pandemic, climate change, and the fight for racial justice. When parents normalize talking about mental health, making it as important as their academic progress, it empowers their child to engage with support at school, and ask for help when they need it.

2. Social and emotional learning is critical

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process of developing self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Research shows that students who are part of high-quality SEL programs can better handle stress and anxiety, have more positive attitudes about themselves and others, and demonstrate improved classroom behavior.

If that sounds great, be aware that evaluating how SEL plays out in the classroom is tricky. Some schools adopt the idea of SEL but don’t use an evidence-based program or fully integrate it, a process that can take up to five years. Instead, kids might hear about the value of SEL without spending part of their school day learning about it or experiencing those lessons in their academic work. When SEL is explicitly taught, students participate in activities like labeling their feelings, setting and achieving their goals, and developing empathy.

Educators can incorporate SEL into academic work by creating a culture of collaboration, helping students own their learning and progress, and inviting them to reflect on how what they’re learning connects to their SEL skills. Such strategies revolve around relationship building, a cornerstone of SEL that prepares students for much more than memorizing facts and figures.

“When there are opportunities for students to really engage in work that they feel interested in, that they feel they can develop a sense of purpose around and then use that to engage meaningfully with other people — having discussions, listening to other perspectives, think about what those perspectives mean — and then work with others to problem solve and come up with solutions, when they are practicing all of these skills, it’s helping them feel a sense of agency over how to achieve goals that are meaningful to them,” says Justina Schlund, senior director of content and field learning of the nonprofit Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL).

The organization has a list of 10 indicators of what school-wide SEL should look like. Among those are integration of SEL principles in academic work and a focus on hearing from and engaging students about what matters to them.

3. School culture matters

Some parents may see school culture as separate from their child’s ability to emotionally and academically thrive, but it’s actually integral to their long-term success. When a school feels welcoming, respectful, and inclusive of all students, it tells children that they’re valued. That sense of inherent self-worth boosts their confidence and makes it possible for them to focus on their schoolwork and relationships, and develop strategies for dealing with bullying, discrimination, or injustice.

Parents can gauge culture by looking at a school’s practices. While this may be challenging to assess given that parents have limited access to campus because of COVID restrictions, they can read school policies, pay attention to administrative announcements or newsletters, and ask their child to discuss their experiences. One major policy that factors into a school’s culture is how educators discipline students, says Schlund.

“There’s a big difference between discipline systems that are very punitive or exclusionary and discipline policies that are meant to teach and restore,” Schlund says, noting that the latter approach supports SEL while the former doesn’t.

Other elements that shape school culture include whether staff are culturally responsive and capable of serving diverse students’ needs equitably; whether the school is prepared to identify and address trauma; if educators solicit student feedback; and, do staff receive support for their own well-being. Research suggests that better teacher well-being is associated with less psychological distress for students. It’s also important for parents to remember that they influence school culture in profound ways. Their actions and behavior — on the school playground, volunteering in the classroom, interacting with teachers, students, and other parents — can support the school’s positive efforts or diminish them.

4. There is no one-size-fits-all approach

Parents who are particularly invested in their child’s success and well-being might be inclined to march into the principal’s office with a list of demands for mental health resources and services. Yet Schlund says there is no one-size-fits all approach to supporting students’ social and emotional learning at school. Instead, parents can ask their school how it supports students’ SEL development in tandem with their academic growth.

Parker recommends asking “global questions.” These can include whether the school is conducting well-being screenings, whether teachers are trained to identify students that may need emotional or social support, if students are provided information about where to go if they need help, or how a parent might follow-up with their concerns.

Dr. Kelly Vaillancourt Strobach, Ph.D., a school psychologist and director of policy and advocacy for the National Association of School Psychologists, says curious parents should give educators grace right now.

“We always say parents are kids’ first SEL teachers.”

Rather than making assumptions about what a school is or isn’t doing, parents can ask how to be a good partner by practicing what educators are teaching at home. Strobach does recommend advocating for essential services that are unavailable at school, particularly on-site counselors and psychologists. When there’s only an off-site referral system in place, educators can miss out on developing partnerships with mental health experts and students have fewer opportunities to receive help exactly when they need it.

While the various aspects of addressing mental health needs at school might intimidate parents, there is one thing they can do consistently: Model the importance of mental health and emotional well-being for their kids. Particularly in the wake of the pandemic, parents can explore whether they need more support or new coping skills, with the awareness that how they behave at home influences how their child experiences challenges at school.

“We always say parents are kids’ first SEL teachers,” says Schlund.

If you’re seeking resources for a child experiencing mental health issues, consider contacting the confidential and free helpline sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) or 1-800-487-4889 for TTY callers. Assistance is available in English and Spanish.