5 Low-Budget Ways to Address Mental Health Needs [Episode 164]

Lauren 0:00
Mental Health Awareness Month is upon us. That is the month of May. And so I figured it would be a timely episode to talk about addressing mental health needs, and more specifically, I want to talk about some low budget ways to address mental health needs, because let’s be real, you do not have a huge budget to overhaul an entire mental health program for your school, and I get that. I have some past episodes on mental health that I will link to in the show notes, but let’s talk about some low budget ways to address mental health needs in this week’s episode.

Lauren 0:40
You got into this profession to make a difference in your students’ lives, but you’re spread thin by all the things that keep getting added to your to do list. I can’t create more hours in the day, but I can invite you into my counselor clique where you’ll finally catch your breath. Come with me as we unpack creative ideas and effective strategies that’ll help you be the counselor who leaves a lifelong impact on your students. I’m Lauren Tingle, your high school counseling hype girl, here to help you energize your school counseling program and remind you of how much you love your job.

Lauren 1:12
First, I want you to think about leaning on others in terms of how you collaborate with them and use their gifts and abilities, along with yours, to help students in their time of need. So who are some people you could be leaning on here? Your teachers, they don’t really know what to look for right now with your students. Maybe they want to help. They feel overwhelmed by all of their classroom duties, so it’s just like not on the forefront of their mind because they don’t know what to do. They don’t know how to help.

Lauren 1:41
However, your teachers know your students really well. So I think if you can help your teachers know what to look for, even just in terms of, hey, this is how you notice that a student is struggling with anxiety, depression, other mental health issues. You’re not asking them to diagnose. You’re not asking them to look at the student and say, Hey, I think you are depressed. You should go see a counselor. Do not identify any of those things if you do not have the education to do that.

Lauren 2:10
I want you to think about giving some sort of training or maybe just some quick tips to teachers for how to identify and how to give some basic support for students who may be struggling with mental health needs. And maybe that’s solely walking them down to see a counselor, but I don’t want you to forget about teachers being key players in identifying students and connecting them to the appropriate resources.

Lauren 2:36
Next, think about the people like the mental health counselor who may be in your building, the school psychologist who may come in for testing once a week, or the social worker who pops in every other week to meet with some students. These are people who are used to collaborating with others. They’re used to identifying needs with students and then helping them connect to resources. They do what you do in a similar vein, and so I don’t want you to forget about how valuable of a resource they can be.

Lauren 3:05
Now, some of these people are only in your school building every so often. They may not be there full time. They probably don’t know every student in the school, or a big chunk of them like you do, but I want you to think about leaning on them for their expertise. Could they give a presentation to those teachers who need help identifying students? Could they be a resource in the community or connect you to community resources? Yeah, I think they could. So don’t forget about them in terms of what they could offer you for resources that are just outside of the school building. But also if they would be interested in doing something in the school building if they’re not completely overwhelmed by their own caseloads and their own responsibilities. Maybe they want more one on one time with students, and they want to do a small group with you, or they want to come with you into a classroom to do a lesson. You don’t know until you ask. And so don’t forget about these people and their valuable expertise with students’ mental health needs, that’s what they specialize in, too.

Lauren 4:04
And then this comes in terms of collaborating with others. I just want you to keep this in the back of your mind. It’s important to set boundaries so that you don’t burn out, because I do think that when you are constantly working with these students in crisis, yes, it’s rewarding, because you really do make a huge difference. Sometimes it’s a life or death difference, and you are so thankful that you were the right person at the right time to talk to this student and help solve a major crisis or avoid something even bigger happening. But a lot of that, as we know, could send you into a burnout mode. So I just want you to be aware of what your capacity is and be able to refer out if that is outside of your scope. Do not think that you have to be able to handle everything on your own.

Lauren 4:52
I know we talk a lot about living in the gray. There isn’t really a roadmap for deciding when to refer out. You’re going to need to consult with co-counselors, or someone at your district level, or someone from your internship program, like you need to have somebody that you can refer to and kind of toss ideas back and forth, but also just hold you accountable to not burning out. I know we don’t get to choose our caseload, and so maybe it feels impossible to really set some strict boundaries on the students that you see. That’s not possible in a school setting, but just being aware of what your personal and emotional boundaries might be, so that you know, hey, I either need to go get counseling right now. I need to take care of myself outside of the school day, or I need to be able to refer out when this is outside of my scope.

Lauren 5:43
Another big topic that I feel like comes up a lot is just being able to provide that mental health support when you do have limited access to other people. So I talked about who those other people might be and how you could collaborate with them. But what if you do not have them? What if you and your students have limited access to outside therapists and outside counselors? I think you never know until you ask. So if it is an idea that could be put on the table of bringing in a mental health counselor to your school full time or once or twice a week like that, would be huge to give that access to those mental health resources to students who can’t go outside of the school building and get them, or they don’t have parents to drive them there, or they don’t have the means to pay for that.

Lauren 6:27
I know a lot of times when we get those mental health supports in the school, it is built on a sliding scale, and so it’s really affordable and really accessible to students. So if you don’t have that, I’d encourage you to make some waves and ask. You will never know if it’s even possible in your school unless you ask.

Lauren 6:46
A lot of times, what you’re doing as a school counselor is you’re triaging. You are overwhelmed by the amount of crises that are walking in your door, and you’re dropping everything to handle them. That is real life if you’re finding yourself completely overwhelmed by the mental health supports that you need to create and put in place to care for all these students, I think that’s worth visiting and thinking about your program in terms of, hey, it might be time to revamp something.

Lauren 7:14
Are all the crises that seem to be coming in, just walk ins that interrupt your day? Are they parent calls asking to go check on a student? Are you always putting out fires instead of getting ahead of things? If you feel like you’re always reacting to really high need things, I think this is worth pausing to look at, maybe problem solving at a department meeting, or if it’s just you kind of just starting to take note of what your triaging looks like.

Lauren 7:42
If it feels overwhelming, like it’s interrupting your day, like the mental health needs of your students are out of control, we’ve got to change something. So whether that’s doing some more education on the front end and giving students the coping skills that they need, or maybe that’s just creating a system of supports of how you refer out. Maybe you need to create the roadmap that allows you some freedom to address mental health needs in a more standard way.

Lauren 8:11
I’m sure doctors have standards of care that they triage their patients with. I haven’t looked into that, and that’s not my background, but I’m just thinking there are systematic ways that maybe you could send a student down a certain path if they have these characteristics or these qualities, and these are the resources you have within your means in your school counseling program. And this is what you don’t have, and this is where you need to send them. If that hasn’t been built out already, maybe you need to pause and think about that if your days are becoming super overwhelming because of mental health needs.

Lauren 8:47
I know that there are seasons where it can feel more like that, or certain grade levels at certain times of the year, just thinking with senior stress at the end of the year, or freshmen transitioning into high school at the beginning of the year. There are moments and pockets where these mental health needs feel like they bubble up and kind of explode, and if you can kind of get ahead of that with some of the proactive training and educating and teaching the coping skills that students need, I think that you’re gonna see a more manageable caseload as you’re trying to address these things.

Lauren 9:21
A lot of what I’m thinking about as I’m talking about addressing mental health needs, is creating support systems and training other people, even though this might not be their level of expertise, but training them just to identify some key factors that can help you be more proactive. So creating peer support systems or training your administrators to notice warning signs.

Lauren 9:45
If you don’t feel like you have the capacity or the margin to create a whole new presentation, don’t forget about the people who probably have presentations prepared on stuff like this. Is there someone in your district who does crisis training for people at the district level, or people in schools? Is there some interventionist somewhere who has already done some of these presentations to parents? Is there a head of your crisis team in the district? I know when we would have a student death, there be a crisis team disseminated out to a school, and honestly, it was maybe a key counselor from each school that volunteered for a little bit and felt like they had the capacity when it wasn’t at their school, to go visit the middle school and be the counselor who comes in and helps with some of that grieving. I don’t know who that is in your district, or if that is even a thing, but if there’s a person who’s the point of that, they’ve probably been trained or they’ve probably trained other people on how to handle different crises.

Lauren 10:46
Do you have a friend who’s left school counseling, who has gone into the field to get their LPC and now they work in private practice? Honestly, they probably miss talking about students, working with teachers, collaborating with a team. Bring them in and have them do a presentation about warning signs. If you have an intern, do not forget to use your intern. Have them help you put together a research based yet interactive presentation. Maybe they have the newest research on hand from the classes they’ve been sitting in, and then you can add in the real world examples, and y’all can do a presentation together that would educate people.

Lauren 11:22
Obviously, you’re probably already, but it’s worth mentioning, leaning on your community based mental health resources. Maybe that’s Nami. Maybe you have a funeral home in your neighborhood, or a hospice organization that does a lot of educating around grief, because I feel like grief is a mental health need that comes up a lot. Get a list from your social workers of community resources that they are giving to families and parents and students.

Lauren 11:50
Have a list of those community resources on hand. I always like to have a paper copy in my drawer, like a stack of them, to hand out, whether that’s a list that you’ve built out from your own expertise and your own assimilation of what’s out there, or you have something from the United Way in your area that literally lists out mental health needs, but also everything from, you need food stamps, you need to contact WIC. What do you do if you need to refer for an abusive relationship? I mean, they have so many resources out there. And instead of having to reinvent the wheel every single time someone comes to you in a high need situation, and you are having to research the best resource to give them, have those on hand. And you know, I am a digital person, mostly everything lives in my Google Drive, but this is something that I would have paper copies of on hand at all times to hand to a family or parent or student who needs it.

Lauren 12:48
And then lastly, just have a few low budget, but high impact resources on hand as you run into students with very specific needs. Have some things ready to start a conversation with students, maybe some grief conversation starters, or I have a bunch of different like check in activities that can be used on Google Drive or on a phone or a tablet. Most students are gonna be able to pull that up really easily, and you can go through it with them and start a conversation and let them reflect. Whether that’s on the stress that they’re feeling, the mindfulness skills or coping skills that they need to have in practice, maybe it’s just a mental health check in that you’re sending to your entire caseload to see who needs a follow up conversation.

Lauren 13:33
And then I know I’ve talked about them before, but EverFi has a bunch of free resources, including a mental wellness kind of course online that’s totally free that students can use.

Lauren 13:44
And so I just want to put those out there for some low budget or even free resources to have on hand, because you’re not gonna be able to think straight when you’re in the moment of crisis, just like your students can’t. And if we can have some low budget ways to get ahead of the mental health needs that our students have, then we are going to feel so much more confident about serving this high need and very intense population.

Lauren 14:09
It doesn’t go away. It’s never going to go away. It’s probably only going to rise, based on recent statistics and what we’re seeing in terms of trends in school with our students. But you know what? It’s where we get to make a huge impact as high school counselors with our students. Who are the students who come back to you and thank you after their time in high school? The ones that you had real serious and intense, often, conversations with about real issues in their lives. So don’t discount the work that you can do when you are thinking about your students mental health needs. I know it can be exhausting, but with the right tools on hand and just having them at all times in your back pocket, you’re going to be more prepared.

Lauren 14:50
And so maybe going into May’s Mental Health Awareness Month, all you’re doing is equipping yourself and refilling your toolkit with what you need to help students find success with their mental health. Thanks for listening. I’ll see you next week.

Lauren 15:07
Thanks for listening to today’s episode of High School Counseling Conversations. All the links I talked about today can be found in the show notes and also at counselorclique.com/podcast. Be sure to hit follow wherever you listen to your podcast so that you never miss a new episode. Connect with me over on Instagram. Feel free to send me a DM @counselorclique, that’s C, L, I, Q, U, E. I’ll see you next week.