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'Kids not okay': School counselors ask for urgent help after Buffalo shooting

2022-05-22T19:52:58.138Z


The increase in student mental health needs, combined with staff shortages and episodes of misconduct and violence, place extraordinary pressure on school counselors and psychologists.


By Jocelyn Gecker and Heather Hollingsworth - The Associated Press 

The crisis facing America's youth and the pressure it is putting on educators is a phenomenon that affects most schools in the country.

A middle school counselor in rural California felt that pressure after teaching a suicide prevention seminar because 200 students began asking for help.

Many were sixth graders.

Another school counselor in Massachusetts talks about a high school student who spent two weeks in a hospital emergency room before being able to get a bed in a psychiatric unit.

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For staff at many schools, last weekend's shooting in Buffalo, carried out by an 18-year-old who had made a threatening comment at his high school last year, sparked discussions about how they might respond differently.

Robert Bardwell, director of school counseling at Tantasqua Regional High School in Fiskdale, Massachusetts, said the shooting in upstate New York shaped how he handled a threat assessment this week.

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He told staff: "You have to pay close attention because I don't want us to be in the news in a year or five saying that the school didn't do something to prevent this."

The increase in student mental health needs, combined with staff shortages and widespread episodes of misbehavior and violence, have placed extraordinary pressure on school counselors and psychologists.

The shooting in Buffalo highlights their concerns about the ability to support students and properly screen those who might commit violent acts.

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When a Binghamton, New York, high school teacher asked accused Buffalo shooter Payton Gendron about his plans after graduating in the spring of 2021, he replied that he wanted to commit a murder-suicide, according to police.

The comment prompted a call to state police and a mental health evaluation at a hospital, where he claimed he was joking and was cleared to attend his graduation.

"I think the schools are still safe," said Bardwell, who is also executive director of the Massachusetts School Counselors Association.

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"But it also seems that there are more and more children who have difficulties. And some of those children can do bad things," warns the specialist.

Childhood depression and anxiety were on the rise in the years leading up to the pandemic, experts say, but school closures and disruption to social life exacerbated those problems.

The return to face-to-face classes has been accompanied by a slew of school shootings, and experts say disputes are turning into gunshots as more students bring guns to study centers.

Teachers say the disrespect and challenges have increased.

Patience runs out very soon and outbursts of anger are frequent.

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"I think the kids are not doing well. I can tell you that the therapists are struggling with that," said Erich Merkle, a psychologist at Akron Public Schools in Ohio, a district of about 21,000 students who said he is dealing with an increase in depression, anxiety, suicidal tendencies of students and substance use, as well as episodes of aggression and violence, among other behavioral problems.

Many parents hoped that as classrooms reopened, the problems with distance learning would fade.

But it quickly became clear that prolonged isolation and immersion in screens and social media had lasting effects.

Schools have become a stage where the effects of the pandemic are manifested.

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School staff are "very worried," said Jennifer Correnti, director of school counseling at Harrison High School in New Jersey, where counselors have been under pressure as they help students acclimate after two school years marred by disruptions due to to the pandemic.

There is no one to escape this."

Jennifer Correnti School Counselor

"Everyone. Directors and staff. There is no one who escapes this. There is no one who does not leave school every day feeling amazed," says Correnti.

In particular, suicide risk assessments have increased considerably.

The counselor says that, in the last three years, she has done as many as in the previous 12 years.

She and Merkle said they use mass shootings like the one in Buffalo, and another in which a 15-year-old shot four classmates in Michigan, to discuss how they would have responded.

At Livingston High School, located in rural central California, counselors have been teaching suicide prevention lessons in classrooms for years.

Before the pandemic, those activities prompted about 30 students to say they wanted to see a counselor, said Alma Lopez, the district's counseling coordinator and one of the middle school's two counselors.

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"This year I had 200 kids, which is a quarter of our student population. That's a very large number. I can't see 200 kids every week. That's just impossible," she said.

Many of the children seeking help were sixth graders with friendship-related issues, he said.

Quickly, school staff made changes, holding as many one-on-one sessions as they could, providing more group lessons on mental health, and posting flyers in each classroom with the number for the suicide prevention hotline.

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They brought as many activities, clubs, and assemblies as they could to help the kids connect.

And Lopez said he constantly reminds his district that more support is needed, a request that is echoed by his peers across the country.

Most states are struggling with mental health support in schools, according to a recent report from the Hopeful Futures Campaign, a coalition of national mental health organizations.

In some states, including West Virginia, Missouri, Texas and Georgia, there is only one school psychologist for more than 4,000 students, according to that report.

Lopez oversees a caseload of about 400 students at her school in Livingston, California, far more than the American Association of School Counselors' recommended ratio of one counselor for every 250 students.

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"Right now that creates a lot of tension," he said.

Many students at his school are the children of farmworkers in a community hard hit by COVID-19 infections and deaths.

"I think a lot can be lost. If we don't intervene early, the problems that come with grief will compound and create additional challenges," he said.

If we don't intervene in time, the problems that arise with the duel will be aggravated."

Alma Lopez, school counselor

Lopez and other counselors convened a discussion earlier this week about helping students process fears related to the Buffalo shooting and whether it was safe to go to the grocery store.

Federal grant money has helped address a shortage of mental health professionals at some schools, though some campuses have struggled to find qualified employees or have used the aid to train existing staff.

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The challenges are compounded by the rise in gun violence in schools, said David Riedman, a criminologist and co-founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database, an organization that keeps a national tally of incidents in which a gun is fired in schools. .

By that count, there were 249 K-12 school shootings in 2021, more than double the number in any year since 2018, when Riedman started the database.

So far this year, there have been 122 shootings.

There is also a notable difference from previous years: Many of the incidents were not planned attacks, but normal disputes that ended in gunshots.

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Mental health specialists not linked to schools have also felt the strain, Bardwell said, referring to his student with a history of mental illness who spent two weeks in an emergency room waiting to be admitted for psychiatric care.

According to the expert, these types of incidents highlight the flaws in the country's health care system and show that the state does not have enough residential mental health capacity, especially for adolescents.

Richard Tench, a counselor at St. Albans High School in West Virginia, said it's impossible to refer students who need outside counseling to therapists in their area.

"All our references are full. We're on a waiting list. If outside experts are busy, where do we go," he said.

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2022-05-22

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