They are a top-notch team of professionals devoted to promoting the individual growth and well-being of students, teachers, staff and families throughout Jordan School District.
On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with the District’s Student Services team to hear about the important work they do on a daily basis supporting the overall social emotional wellness of students in and outside of school, empowering them to achieve academic success, along with college and career development.
Listen and learn about services available to support your child and your family.
Audio Transcription
Anthony Godfrey:
Hello, and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. They are a top-notch team of professionals devoted to promoting the individual growth and well-being of students, teachers, staff, and families throughout Jordan School District. On this episode of the Supercast, we sit down with the district's student services team to hear more about the important work they do on a daily basis, supporting the overall social emotional wellness of students in and outside of school, empowering them to achieve academic success along with college and career development. Listen in and learn about services available to support your child and your family.
I'm excited to have our Student Services department here with us today. We're gonna start with Travis Hamblin, the director of the department. Just a few years ago, this department did not exist in this form. Travis, Student Services covers a wide range of student needs and district services. Everything from maps and enrollment to behavior and other services. Services through McKinney Vento for students who are experiencing homelessness. Let's focus on talking about the health and wellness and mental health aspect of what you and your department are responsible for.
Travis Hamblin:
We have an amazing group of people that provide a countless number of resources and supports for students. We have McKinley Withers with our Health and Wellness, he works with everything from our clinical support staff to prevention. We have Fulvia Franco, who is our consultant for Guidance, which are all of our psychologists and our Jordan Family Ed. We have Stacee Worthen, who works with all of our school counselors, K-12 and the Comprehensive Guidance program and working with them to provide direct services to students. It should be noted that all three of those individuals work with professionals in the mental health field that work directly with students to help them in whatever area or need that they may have, whether it's academic, whether it's social, whether it's emotional or mental health, any of those areas. We also have student support personnel people that work with our students that have concerns with truancy or any other areas. But specifically, we work a lot with our mental health for students and staff.
Anthony Godfrey:
We talk about student health and wellness. We talk about bolstering health and wellness, but we also talk about responding to emergencies and difficulties and hard situations when they do occur. So let's talk about prevention. I think people have looked at prevention over the years in silos. There's suicide prevention, there's bullying prevention there's school safety and prevention of school violence. How does that all fit together now, the way that we're looking at things in Jordan?
Travis Hamblin:
The prevention efforts that we're doing now, look at everything holistically. We see things not just in a bucket of preventing and responding, but in a holistic view of doing that all at the same time. The example would be this, is if there is a student that's in suicidal crisis, we're not only looking at, okay, how can we respond? But we're also looking at how we can look at preventing or addressing the unknown factors that are out there. The students that we don't know about, and supporting them in a wide variety of manners so that we can address students who may be suffering in silence and those that we don't know about. So it's not just about addressing one side of an issue or another. It's about saying, okay, we do, we know we have students that are struggling in certain areas or in many areas. So how do we address it holistically, both from an adult perspective, but also from a kid-centered perspective?
Anthony Godfrey:
And I think all of those issues overlap when we address one issue, we're really addressing others, bullying, suicide, school violence, all of those are interrelated. And really, if we're addressing the health and wellness of students early on, then we're able to prevent a lot of issues rather than simply respond to them. So I wanted to go around the room and talk with each of you about some of the efforts that are in place to address both aspects of the issues that we encounter. How are we helping prevent problems in the first place? And then how are we responding to them when they do occur? Let's talk with Stacee Worthen, who works with all of our school counselors. First of all, let's talk about the expansion of school counselors in our schools.
Stacee Worthen:
Yeah, that's pretty exciting. So we've expanded to a true K-12 program. So we've been able to lower our school counselor to student ratios in the secondaries from about 1 to 350 to about 1 to 300. So we added a half-time position in every middle school. So we have a ratio of one school counselor to about 300, in some cases even 250 students per counselor. So that's actually really exciting. What that does is it allows our counselors a little bit more time to create connections. And that's really what we're focusing on is, in the secondary level, trying to build relationships with our students so that they feel like they have an adult that will connect them to the school. And so that's a prevention piece that we're really trying to focus on. Is there one adult in that building that they really feel like they can come and talk to about academics, about mental health issues, about you know, if the student’s in crisis, who is that adult that they feel like they can trust in that time of need? And in the high schools, we have about a 1 to 300 ratio with the support of our principals in lowering that ratio.
The other exciting thing is that Jordan School District has approved hiring one elementary school counselor for every elementary school. We have been able to hire 12. Those school counselors are working with their students. Anything that the teachers and the principals feel like that community needs within that school, then that's what that school counselor is focusing on. But then they're also working with those kids by providing groups. Grief groups, friendship groups you know, all sorts of different needs that these kids have. They're really working on helping them so that they fill those supports with their school counselors.
Anthony Godfrey:
I'm really excited about our elementary school counselors, but we've also added some supports at the district level as well. So we're providing greater support to our counselors out in the schools, additional training. And that's a trend that's been in place for several years now. I think the role of counselor is more important than ever, and there's more access than ever to counselors for students. The elementary role really allows everyone to get a chance to do their job. I think that need has always been there, but now that there's a counselor at the elementary level, that reduces or shifts the workload on a school psychologist and on administrators so that those unique roles can be fulfilled, and the unique needs of students can be met even more effectively.
Stacee Worthen:
That's right. And we've had really great success with our school counselors working with our school psychologists. They've been really successful in providing group opportunities for students. So we've been able to really meet the needs of more kids because they've been working as a team. And also with our social workers. They really are a team of school clinicians that can provide a lot of different opportunities for our students. That really creates a connection to the school and a lot of opportunities for us to really put in a lot of preventative measures so that these kids are successful.
Anthony Godfrey:
The point that you made there is really important, I think, because we've had part-time positions here and there over the years for psychologists, and for counselors, and for assistant principals. It's very difficult to be effective in building those relationships when you're only there Monday, Tuesday, and half of Wednesday. So I'm excited to see the changes already this year in the connection that we have with students and with parents.
Stacee Worthen:
That's exciting.
Anthony Godfrey:
When talking with parents, if parents are concerned about their students, a great place to start is with a school counselor or school psychologist. Just call up, make an appointment, have a conversation. Speaking of which, Fulvia Franco, talk to us about our school psychologist and what's happening there.
Fulvia Franco:
With our school psychologists, we do do assessment, but we do direct service to students. We provide individual and group counseling. We do crisis intervention, crisis counseling with students. We do post-crisis postvention kinds of things to support children who've been impacted by a crisis in their lives. We also provide services at the Jordan Family Education Center. Jordan School District is unique in having a center like the Family Ed Center in that, that center, was established 44 years ago. We provide parenting classes, we provide intake assessments. That's where a parent, if they have a concern about their son or daughter, can come in, meet one-on-one with a school psychologist or school counselor who's trained to do clinical intake assessments to try to determine what the nature of the concern is and make recommendations to the parent. Those recommendations can range anywhere from something we'd like schools to implement, some support in mental health areas at a school level, or working with our clinical support staff in connecting families with community resources.
One of the biggest things that I've seen change with Student Services is that Travis Hamlin has been instrumental in bringing us together to be school-based mental health teams. For years, we've read in the research that we need school-based mental health services. Well, Jordan District, to me, is doing it the right way in that we put staff directly into the schools. We have full-time allocations for school counselors, K-12, as well as school psychologists. Our secondary, middle and high schools all have clinical support staff, whether they be social workers or clinical mental health counselors. We are doing so many things to support children's needs and students needs, and in that we help parents.
Anthony Godfrey:
And again, I would say it's hard for parents perhaps to imagine all the resources that are available. I would just say make that call. Connect with the professional at the school, and they can really open some doors. Stay with us, when we come back more with the incredible Student Services team.
Break:
Are you looking for a job right now? Looking to work in a fun and supportive environment with great pay and a rewarding career? Jordan School District is hiring. We're currently filling full and part-time positions. You can work and make a difference in young lives and education as a classroom assistant or a substitute teacher. Apply to work in one of our school cafeterias where our lunch staff serves up big smiles with great food every day. We're also looking to hire custodians and bus drivers. In Jordan School District we like to say people come for the job and enjoy the adventure. Apply today at employment.jordandistrict.org
Anthony Godfrey:
McKinley, let's talk with you now about some of the things that we're doing to connect students to outside resources if they need longer term care or more specialized care. Because as we just talked about, we've got a lot of great people that can help with many issues and concerns that would be facing families, but sometimes families don't know where to go next for outside services that they would seek as a family. Tell me about how we connect them to the right people.
McKinley Withers:
Over the last few years, we've established a partnership with several, I guess 19, community-based mental health providers that are partners with our district. And through our Mental Health Access program, we can facilitate access to one of those community mental health providers that have, you know, clinicians that speak a specific language that a student might need, that might provide specialized treatment that a student might need. And by being able to have an existing partnership with our community resources, we can better match a student to their need.
Anthony Godfrey:
Over the last few years, we've also added clinical support staff to all of our secondary schools and some of our elementary schools. Can you tell me what role they play in the lives of students?
McKinley Withers:
So these are individuals that have outside of school mental health experience. So these are DOPL licensed mental health clinicians who, the intent is to have them meet with students who have more severe mental health needs, and to be a bridge between those students and their needs and the community resources that would best match those needs.
Anthony Godfrey:
So that's their focus is to work on maybe some of the more severe needs. But counselors and psychologists work every day with students with severe needs and help them make the most of their school experience and help them make the progress they need to be making.
McKinley Withers:
Yes.
Anthony Godfrey:
Talk about some of the things that we're doing to prevent suicide, bullying and violence in the district.
McKinley Withers:
So again, there are a variety of efforts within Student Services and within Health and Wellness specifically. We've worked with schools to create their own unique but district supported Prevention Plan that addresses each of those topics. And the foundation of good prevention work is understanding and acknowledging that, like you mentioned earlier, prevention of suicide and what characteristics or components are essential to that kind of prevention, are the same characteristics that prevent school violence, those same efforts. So trying to connect all of those efforts under one umbrella, a comprehensive prevention plan. Where if you're making an everyday effort in your school to deepen connections with students, to notice them, to know names, to have added staff, like has been mentioned, so that there are more adults to connect with students. That's going to be prevention effort across the board, whether it's suicide, bullying, or violence.
So because prevention shares common characteristics, each school can create their own unique plan about how they are meeting students' unique needs on building skills, social skills, so they can have quality relationships with peers and adults, and building skills for emotion regulation. Those two things, those two skill building opportunities commonly are referred to as social and emotional learning. So how are we intentionally building skills, providing opportunities for students to practice skills in real time for problem solving, relationship building, emotion regulation. Those are all efforts that lead to prevention in all of those areas. So it's giving people throughout the system the skills for making an everyday effort to enhance students' skills for life.
Anthony Godfrey:
And I like the way you described that, and you described it to principals the same way in a recent meeting, that there's a school-based plan that's district supported. So there's some consistency across the district, but there's also specialization and customization based on the specific needs of a school. And it's pulling a team together around that common effort of prevention and promoting health and wellness in students.
McKinley Withers:
Yeah. And some of those district-wide systems. So district-wide, all of our schools are on the Safe UT app, which means any student in any of our district schools, if they notice something, they hear something concerning, about a friend wanting to hurt themselves or others, or they themselves were bullied. They can submit tips through Safe UT and it will get to the school staff and they can respond accordingly. So all of our district schools are on that Safe UT app. Within the app, students can connect directly with professional crisis worker. So if they themselves are feeling intense emotions, don't know what to do, they can chat or call using the app. And then also our district has implemented a content monitoring system. So on the student accounts, specifically, if a student types in an email or a document or you know, is chatting to a friend about wanting to die, wanting to hurt someone, or an incident that has happened that is concerning we are alerted of that so that we can respond and intervene.
Anthony Godfrey:
Many layers to help prevent and respond to difficulties in our schools. Travis, you've assembled an amazing team of people and it's really exciting for me to watch the progress that we've made as a district and as we referenced earlier, just how we've been able to empower every adult in this district to be a part of helping support our students and promote their health and wellness. Anything you'd like to add about the efforts of Student Services?
Travis Hamblin:
Well, I would say one of the biggest things that we operate on is that relationships don't support the learning, they are the learning. So we focus on helping the adults and helping all of the staff members to build meaningful relationships with students to ensure that we know of the needs that they have, that we can respond, that we can prevent, and that we can assist them through their journey to whatever their journey is going to end in academically, socially, and any kind of wellness activities. We are focused on ensuring that we provide the support that every student needs to succeed. At the end of the day, that's why we get up. We are passionate about making sure that our students have everything they need to succeed.
Anthony Godfrey:
And the bottom line is in the short term and long term lives are being saved.
Travis Hamblin:
Every day, every day.
Anthony Godfrey:
Well, thank you for your hard work everyone. Thanks for taking the time. And just another reminder, call your school, call your counselor, call the psychologist, talk with your administration, ask for help because there's a lot of help out there and a lot of great people who can support your student.
Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Supercast. Remember, education is the most important thing you'll do today. We'll see you out there.