Keep Calm And Counsel On In Charlotte-Mecklenburg

Press release from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools:

9/22/2020

Student Services staff, including school counselors and psychologists, are often the first line of defense in helping students who are struggling with mental health issues. And like everyone else, they've gone virtual.

Throughout Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, support staff members are being creative, innovative and working harder than ever to meet the needs of their students.

Shanyce Sanders is one of two school counselors for the 500 students at Hawthorne Academy of Health Sciences. After attending a virtual professional development conference over the summer, she created a virtual calming room for her students. "The website is a place where students can go when they are feeling overwhelmed," said Sanders. "If they send their teacher a private message and say, 'I just can't focus today,' this is a place that they can find some help."

The calming room has links to guided meditations, mindfulness exercises and information on more extensive mental health resources. "I basically add anything I find that I think could be useful," said Sanders. The website greets visitors with a message: "This Virtual Calming Room is a place for students and families to find tools and strategies for managing emotions and feelings."

The feedback from students has been overwhelmingly positive. "This is a great tool that has tremendous resources for students and staff," said Hawthorne Assistant Principal Vincent Armstrong.

Across town at South Charlotte Middle, the counseling team is also finding new ways to meet the needs of their school community. "The counseling team is doing a great job of meeting the needs of students in the remote learning environment," said Assistant Principal Tomika Wright. "Additionally, the counselors have all played an integral part in helping us to identify and support the students with challenges at home. It feels good to work with such a dedicated team."

Counselors set up virtual offices where students could seek help, find resources and have a safe place to go during a crisis. "I don't want to take any credit," said Amanda Jones, the school's counseling chair. "This is something that counselors all over the district collaborated on over the summer. We shared over the summer so that every counselor wouldn't have to recreate the wheel."

Each school counselor created virtual sessions on topics that include How to Adjust to Middle School, Be Your Own Advocate and Life Balance.

The counseling team is also focused on supporting parents. Before the pandemic hit, the school hosted Counselor Coffee for parents to learn about how to support their students. "We've found that in the virtual environment, supporting our parents is so key," said Jones. "We start with the parents and help the kids from the outside in."

The Counselor Coffee sessions are now virtual, and attendance has grown significantly. Their most recent topic was Parenting in a Pandemic. Jones said the easy accessibility of an online session has made it much easier for parents to attend. "They can throw it on while they're at work or doing chores around the house," she said. "It is just easier, and even when we return to in-person learning, we will always offer the virtual as an option."

Maintaining the mental health of students during remote learning is a high priority for all school counselors. "The main concern I am seeing for teachers, students and staff is their discomfort of the unknown," said Jones. "Their mental health is not strong with the instability of the overall disruption of life. The constant information coming in heightens anxiety."

Jones and Sanders are finding ways to virtually connect with students. Recently, Jones had a teacher report a potentially concerning parent-student interaction on Zoom. Jones joined the class as an observer, watched the student's home environment and was able to provide resources to help the student and their family.

Sanders is constantly in Canvas finding students who haven't logged in and identifying the ones who need home visits or additional support. "We just really want our students to know that we are there for them, no matter what," said Sanders.

Jones reminds her students that their academics are still important, but their mental well-being is the most important thing. "We want you to keep learning, but our top priority is that you are healthy, safe and happy," she said.

This press release was produced by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. The views expressed are the author's own.