NEW ALBANY, Ind. (WHAS11) - Mental health can be complicated, and treating it can be tough. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but New Albany Floyd County Schools is trying to tackle it in a new way.
This all started with the district getting a lot of feedback from teachers and counselors at the elementary level. They didn't feel like they had the tools they needed to support students with mental health needs. That's when NAFCS applied and got a $1.1 million grant through the pharmaceutical company Lilly. The district is now about a year into the pilot and said it's already seeing huge improvements.
"Each day, we learn more,” New Albany Floyd County Schools Associate Superintendent Dr. Louis Jensen said.
NAFCS now has support at all of its 14 buildings. That includes nine elementary, three middle, and two high schools. The mental health therapists pull students during a non-academic period, like study hall.
"The mental health therapist is in school and is able to see the student and also work with the families before school and after school,” Jensen said.
Those providers come from eight different partner agencies: ACP, Centerstone, Family Ark, Family & Children, Heart2Heart, Home of the Innocents, Life Spring, and Personal Counseling.
"With our eight agencies, we're currently servicing 325 students who normally probably wouldn't be getting any type of mental health assistance at all,” Jensen said.
The grant also provides five behaviorists counselors and five social workers. The social workers split all of the buildings, and the behaviorists counselors are dedicated to the district's Title 1 schools: Fairmount, Slate Run, Mt. Tabor, SEJ, and Green Valley.
"The behaviorist actually goes out and sees what's going on in the classroom and works with the student in that area,” Jensen said.
The district said these services are paving a path for progress for students who desperately need it.
"We have a lot of success stories where we have students who last year had a lot of discipline issues and attendance issues, and with those kids now actively seeing a therapist, that's been greatly reduced,” Jensen said.
Making mental health a more common conversation is the district's goal.
"Trauma, unfortunately, is a big part of our society today not just in adults, but in children coming to school. People don't realize that an adverse trauma experience as a child can impact how they function in school. It's just shocking. If a kid can't behave in class or deal with learning, they can't move on and become successful adults. We're trying to provide that safe environment by providing them this assistance with mental health,” Jensen said. "The acronym today in education is SEL, which is social and emotional learning. Now, people are really focusing more on that social and emotional learning component than just academics. We do a great job with academics when a kid is struggling with math or reading, but when the social and emotional is impacting their learning, that's where we struggle as educators.”
The grant is good for two more years, but the district is already looking ahead to future ways to fund these services. There's a possibility the state will pass new laws soon that would allow districts to push for school safety referendums on ballots. Those could then be used to pay for school resource officers and mental health counselors.
►Contact reporter Sara Wagner at swagner@WHAS11.com. Follow her on Twitter (@WHAS11Sara) and Facebook.
