While the Vernon School District has good support in place for students struggling with mental health issues, it is stretched to capacity.
“If I were giving the district a grade, it would be in the C range,” said Truman Spring, director of instruction for student support services. “Right now we’re making do and we’re making things happen but the kids that we’re dealing with are getting more complex, the issues that we’re dealing with as a community are starting to also become difficult. We’ve got Syrian refugees coming in and some of those students will be trauma-based. Those things layered upon layers eventually stretches that system.”
Last spring, the school board approved the creation of a committee of key stakeholders to assess counselling support services in the district, to ensure it is meeting the needs of students.
Meetings were held in November and December and included representatives from Child and Youth Mental Health, Ministry of Child and Family Development, North Okanagan Youth and Family Services Society, Interior Health, district trustees, administrators and senior management.
In his presentation to trustees last week, Spring said there are about 800,000 kids across the country affected by mental health issues.
“So what we’re talking about is something that’s endemic across the country and it is really a difficult issue in B.C.,” he said. “We’re not alone, many districts are going through this right now.”
He said the group agreed that the district, along with its partner groups, has done a reasonable job in helping to provide both counselling and mental health resources and programming to students.
Some of the key recommendations from the review group include: greater engagement with parent community; engaging seniors in student programming; clearer protocols and procedures around health and safety risks in the school and community environments; a commitment of a four-year plan of action that focuses on mental health, drug misuse and school counselling issues.
“Interestingly enough, the legislative assembly had a two-year report on mental health and they have 23 succinct recommendations, and our 11 recommendations mirror these so we’re right on track as far as the province is concerned,” said Spring. “The good news is that we’re doing OK. There are some things that we’re going to be doing to start moving in a positive direction to support our kids.
“We’re also talking about getting senior citizens more involved. That’s where we’re actually using those folks in a program where they can be positive role models for our kids that are having difficulties.”
Spring said there also needs to be more of a focus on preventative programs at the elementary level, making use of existing programs such as FRIENDS, Zones of Regulation and Roots of Empathy.
“The other piece of that is a common language that we need amongst all the community. It’s not just a school district problem, it’s a community problem. We don’t have systemic protocols and we need to have those in place,” he said. “Right now we’re doing the informal supports with the relationships we’ve developed with other agencies but we need good formal protocols to keep that moving along. And we need regular check-ins.”
Spring said one of the recommendations is something that is happening in other school districts: create a district-based position that acts as a liaison for district, agency, community communication and service integration.
“I have a bit of a recommendation of a possible position for that: what I would like to walk away from today is an agreement in principle; as long as we have the money I think it would go a long way with the recommendations to help support the preventative nature of mental health,” he said. “One of the things I want to emphasize is that we do need to have a constant source of information coming in so that we can keep updating.
“(Counsellor) Dave MacKenzie is looking at putting a survey forward to parents and community groups so that we can do planning, both short-term and long-term.”
Board chairperson Kelly Smith said the committee’s recommendations will be considered by the board under the 2016/17 budget process.