A Home Run for Mental Health Services How Vidor ISD created a mental health initiative

A Home Run for Mental Health Services

How this district created a mental health initiative

by Sally Andrews Director of Community Relations Vidor ISD

ropical Storm Harvey. Tropical Storm Imelda. COVID-19. Hurricanes Laura and Delta.

TThose of us living in Vidor, Texas honestly want to shout, “Enough, already!” If adults carry the trauma of repeated stressful events, just imagine what young people must feel. And for many of those little ones and teens, the upsetting events that flooded their homes, wiped out their school campuses, and took away their possessions are piled atop sexual, physical, and verbal abuse, neglect, divorce, death, and dysfunction, all occurring before they even set foot in their classrooms each morning.

It’s difficult for school districts to meet the social and emotional needs of students, but perhaps no ‘outside’ program that is undertaken in public school is more important, more beneficial, and more life-changing than a strong behavioral health offering. After 75 percent of homes and businesses were flooded and two of our seven campuses were destroyed in Harvey, Vidor ISD decided to step up to the plate and swing a different bat. The results? A home run.

The district began a behavioral health program in 2017 with a handful of part-time people who met with students weekly … sometimes in small groups and other times individually, depending on the needs documented by school counselors, teachers, and principals. The first behavioral specialists were retired school counselors, art therapists, or those who had a compendium of experience working with youth in trauma. The results were encouraging, with students learning tactile ways in which to handle their stressors in the classroom and at home.

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In year two of this initiative, two full time therapists were added through grant funding from Red Cross, offered through the Meadows Mental Health Initiative. Now, heading into year four of the program, Vidor ISD has received funds from a private donor, Hancock Whitney Trust, Texas Network of Youth Services (TNOYS), and other entities who see the extreme value of reaching not only the minds of our young charges, but their psyches and emotions. More than five hundred of our 4,200 students visit a behavioral specialist. The young ones listen to storybooks about sadness, anger, grief, and trauma. They paint and sculpt and create, and while their small hands are busy, their young minds begin to share. And from these expressions, specialists craft techniques to help the children manage their stressors. Older students meet in groups or individually to plan futures that are positive in spite of life conditions that are not.

Vidor ISD also practices free telepsychiatry through a program with UTMB called TCHATT ( developed by the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium), and this year is beginning Hope Squad, which trains student mentors to be listeners for those students grappling with emotional trauma and suicidal thoughts.

As Paul Shane Spear said, “As one person I cannot change the world, but I change the world of one person.” Behavioral health programming is working mighty changes for us here, because a caring adult taking the time to change the world of one young person really is a “home run.”