Transcript for 102: Children's Mental Health in Decline
Announcer:
This episode is brought to you by the University of Tennessee College of Social Work.
Greg Wright:
Welcome to Social Work Talks. My name is Greg Wright. The mental health of our students has been suffering lately. So we're having a conversation with Kimberly Mattias, who is a social worker in schools, and also a Gary Pettengell, who is the CEO and founder of ECINS about a new report on the state of mental health of school students. So welcome to Social Work Talks podcast, Kimberly and Gary.
Kimberly Mattias
Thank you.
Gary Pettengell:
Hi, thank you.
Greg Wright:
Yeah, so before we launch this, I wanted to get an idea of who you are. Kimberly if you could give us a description of how you actually started out as a social worker, and also where are you, and then after that, if we could talk to Gary a bit about ECINS and its work.
Kimberly Mattias
Perfect, sure. So my name is Kimberly Mattias. I'm a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Rhode Island. My journey in the school social work field began in 2016. I was a mentor for at risk youth and as well as a behavior specialist in an inpatient unit in Rhode Island. In between that time, I also volunteered as a therapist for undocumented and uninsured adults, and also worked as a hospital social worker for some time. In 2019, I started my journey in school social work, and have been a part of Providence Public School District for a little over two years now. I'm currently a certified youth mental health first aid trainer and have advanced training and CBT motivational interviewing, DBT, Family Therapy, Solution Focused Interventions, and Trauma Informed Care.
Greg Wright:
Wow, a lot, Gary.
Gary Pettengell:
Yeah, so again, Gary, I'm the CEO at ECINS. Well we've been sort of doing our field of work, it's getting towards a quarter of a century now, 25 years. We operate in the US, in the UK, and Australia. Primarily in the US we're focused on student support and case management, and so we're placed with the School Social Work Association of America, we're the only one endorsed by them in that field, and we're helping them to achieve their goal of trying to standardize best practice of school social work across America.
Greg Wright:
Yes, so there's a new survey out and it's entitled the State of Mental Health, correct? Or is it a longer title? Tell me that.
Gary Pettengell:
Yeah, no, that would be the title. Yeah.
Greg Wright:
Yeah, so I was wondering exactly what was a motivation for this survey.
Gary Pettengell:
It was trying to get an understanding of the true extent of the problem. And there's a lot of, as I'm sure everybody knows, that there's a lot of facts and figures out there. So it wasn't really a case of reinventing the wheel. We just really wanted to reach out to school social workers and counselors and professionals in the field to really get an idea of their understanding, they're working on the ground, and their perceptions and their understanding of the issue.
Greg Wright:
So the findings were that over 8% of the students are saying that their mental health worsened lately. I was wondering at all if you were surprised by that finding.
Gary Pettengell:
So yeah, it is always a shock and it is surprising when you read it. I think the real value for us from the survey, and for us as an organization, it was actually hearing it firsthand from a large number of professionals.
Greg Wright:
So exactly how large was the survey size. How many schools or social workers were actually contacted for this?
Gary Pettengell:
So it was towards 400, which was reasonable. It was a good spread across all the States in the US, so we were pleased with that spread and the number.
Greg Wright:
Kimberly, you are a social worker. You're out there on the frontlines. What are you seeing? Is the situation a lot worse?
Kimberly Mattias
Yes.
Greg Wright:
Exactly what's up?
Kimberly Mattias
So I started school social work in schools and in January 2019, as I had stated before. And that was just a couple of months right before the pandemic took over and everything kind of shut down. And it was hard for me trying to figure out in that moment how I was supposed to be at home with my children and also tried to support over 800 students in my school, which I was the only school social worker at the time, and be effective at my job, especially at a time where COVID-19 brought so much anxiety and so much fear around this virus. The amount of grief and loss as well as the increase in depression and anxiety and abuse and suicide risk was very draining. And children finished one year virtually and they started the next as well, virtually. So it was very stressful and confusing and just a really hard time for everyone. I think everybody was feeling it, teachers, staff, everyone alike was just trying to figure out how to be in the moment of so much confusion and certainty.
But once schools were allowed to open again, many had hopes that things would just go back to normal. And unfortunately that has not been the case. So the number of student social work referrals had more than tripled within the first month of us returning to school. And since then, fast-forward to today, it's been, what, about maybe three years since the pandemic started or so. And we're still trying to get through those referrals and still trying to make sure we see our students and that we check in. There's been such an increase in mental health services and crisis in our school and in everywhere in general, but it's really hard to catch up on those referrals.
And I've noticed new students struggling with things they never struggled before. So many students lost family members, they have some type of trauma. For many students, school is a safe space, and they were home stuck for so long without that safe space. Or some students I know, I can say from experience, school would be the place they would come eat, and we were forced to not have that anymore. So all that was just taken away and now they return and we're seeing so many increases in just things that we hadn't seen before or that were not so intense, I would say.
Greg Wright:
Yeah, so I was wondering what are those things that you haven't seen before that are now more evident as far as the mental health of students?
Kimberly Mattias
So for me, I think social anxiety is one of the really big ones. The kids being separated from being in person with so many people, I can speak for a lot of our fifth graders that went on to middle school and now they were supposed to have six different classes and all this stuff happening. And all around in general, social anxiety has been one of the biggest increases we've seen. Again grief, suicide risk, the abuse and things that kids were exposed to and families having loss of income, PTSD trauma all around in general. Not that it wasn't a thing before, but it has definitely increased in size since Covid happened.
Greg Wright:
Yeah, so you are the only social worker for 800 students is that right?
Kimberly Mattias
Yes.
Greg Wright:
Because that's interesting because our standards for school social work actually call for at least one per 250, so that's a staffing shortage there. That's a big one. A lot of folks-
Kimberly Mattias
So we've noticed the shortage and they pull us in different directions sometimes in the district to go cover at different schools because we just don't have it. And I think there's a lot of things that come into play as to why there's so little social workers available in the field, in schools. But for sure, we're trying to pass the bill on Rhode Island right now. Today actually they're at the courthouse trying to get the bill passed so that we do have one social worker for every 250 students, which would make our lives so much easier.
It's still a lot of students, but we're hoping that gets passed and it is just such a disadvantage for our students and for us, the burnout is so huge. So we're hoping that does get passed and that the importance of having school social workers or social workers in general and mental health gets seen and the demand is there. So we're hoping that maybe the wage increases or whatever properly that they have to do to make sure that these jobs are taken and that we can retain the social workers because it's great that we can have one for every 250, but are the job positions actually being filled due to that lack of resources or the lack of pay or whatever the case may be, that why those jobs are not getting filled.
Greg Wright:
Gary, ECINS you have a mission to actually use data in order to solve issues like this. So I was wondering, after looking at the survey, what are some solutions to all of this? I mean there's a shortage of social workers, there's a demand that's just extraordinary. So I was wondering if there was any hope that ECINS offered to all of this?
Gary Pettengell:
Yeah, there's a couple of avenues really. I mean, yeah, the data there is important, but I think it's also enabling that collaborative work. And so there is a number of support mechanisms within the school. So you've got the school social workers, you got counselors, got psychologists, you've got a number of people. So our aim is to enable them to work effectively together. And again, to gather that evidence and that data in order to, as I take Kimberly's point, if we can do this with one school social worker, imagine what we could do if we had two or three and it goes on. So it's enabling that everyone to work together to capture that data.
Greg Wright:
So another thing is that I think that the survey had said that a solution might actually be our technology. So how can our technology help when there's a manpower shortage going on too?
Gary Pettengell:
I think it's streamlining processes, it's automated processes, it's reducing the administrative burden. And I think it is pretty well established if you're trying to do all this on paper and spreadsheets, it's very, very, very difficult. It's time-consuming. Even things of a student being referred in, if it's on a post-it note, if it's a conversation in the corridor, if it's an email coming in from parents or guardians, if you can even make that an electronic process that sends out. It automatically updates, it sends notifications, that saves a huge amount of time. And that's just one element of identifying the student and then the work with the student when you can make that more efficient as well. So that's really how it can help. So really it's overworked people like Kimberly here, it is enabling them to support more students and work more effectively.
Announcer:
The University of Tennessee College of Social Work offers specialized certificate programs for graduate students and postgraduate professionals, including an MSS level school social work licensure at our Knoxville and Nashville campuses and online. No matter which program you choose, the UT College of Social Work provides quality, affordability, and flexibility to suit your needs. Learn more about these programs at www.csw.utk.edu/talks.
Greg Wright:
You and Kimberly have actually worked with each other before. I would like to know exactly what was that project? How did that turn out?
Gary Pettengell:
Well, so we provide the system into Kimberly's school district. I mean we've met lots of times on Teams, in meetings, and we met at the SSWAA conference in Denver and all those old-fashioned face to face meetings, which was nice. But so yeah, Kimberly is a user of these things.
Greg Wright:
Gotcha. How has it worked out for you though, Kimberly? Has it made it easier? I mean I know that you want another social worker in there helping, but has it been a benefit having a bit of technology helping you too?
Kimberly Mattias
Yeah, so I can speak as we are a charter school, even though I am a part of the Providence School District. So we had been brainstorming last year as to how we could make our process more streamlined. So I think what we were looking for was a way to get rid of paper files because the storage was becoming a problem. There's a timeline when it comes to how long we need to keep files and all the above. So that was an issue. And also, like Gary had said, just being able to communicate with everyone else on the team. So we have a student support team, which is consists of administrative counselors, psychologists, all of the above, the mental health kind of team in the school. And as referrals come in, we were using a user-friendly system that was out there already. But there was a lot of issues around confidentiality and again, data pulling and being able to just make a streamlined process so that we could all see when a student was referred, take ownership of that referral.
Speaker 1:
The University of Tennessee College of Social Work offers specialized certificate programs for graduate students and postgraduate professionals, including an MSS level school social work licensure at our Knoxville and Nashville campuses and online. No matter which program you choose, the UT College of Social Work provides quality, affordability, and flexibility to suit your needs. Learn more about these programs at www.csw.utk.edu/talks.
Kimberly Mattias
Whether it was putting our notes privately. We all wanted to be able to enter confidential notes but also able to see so-and-so was working on seeing the student already, or they were seen yesterday. So that one then doesn't become the top priority right, because we know they got some attention. And I think with the lack of the technology we were having a really hard time trying to communicate those things. So students were either not getting seen or seen twice by different people or it was becoming very confusing.
So when we approach ECINS, it was because we definitely wanted something to streamline our process and it's been very helpful. Like Gary said, we've been jumping on Zoom calls here and there and just trying to figure out, hey, this is working, what can we do for this? And ECINS's been great in that sense of being able to tailor that system specifically towards everything that we need and making our jobs just easier in that sense. Yes we still have, now we have two social workers, but it's still only two for 800 students, but at least the counselors are also pitching in and we can all know, hey you saw the student for this and I saw the student for this. Now we know there's two problems. So when we go into our meetings, we can bring all this data and also send things to students and families from this system, which has been a game changer in general when it comes to school social work.
Greg Wright:
Gary, is ECINS only working with school social workers or is it a system that also applies to other areas of social work? Social work is a diverse thing. There are veterans, social workers, school ones, private practice. I mean it's over a lot of different areas. So it is ECINS in more than just say a school setting?
Gary Pettengell:
Yes, it is. So we can work in any setting, whether it's from family issues, could be domestic abuse issues, homelessness, really. And we've got a number of projects across the US. So it's not just for social workers and counselors, but it does work in other settings as well.
Greg Wright:
Kimberly, so our pandemic is easing. So I was wondering, at this point, are you more hopeful that the mental health of our students over time will improve? Are you seeing that or is there a reason for a lot more concern going forward?
Kimberly Mattias
Yeah, so we've definitely seen the referrals drop this year a little bit, which has been great. I think families are being able to go back to work and do these go back into routine as best as they could. I don't see it going back to baseline pre-pandemic anytime soon. There's just so many after effects of the pandemic that we still need to address and come to acceptance with when it comes to our students and families. Definitely feel like it's getting better, but still so much work to be done in the area.
Greg Wright:
So I've actually read that our schools socialize our children. Being around others socializes them in that a lot of kids being isolated for a few years have actually missed out on that and it's really made them a whole lot less of a mature person. And I was wondering are you seeing that?
Kimberly Mattias
Yes, yes, for sure. We're also seeing the increase in behaviors, and I think it has to do with, a lot of it has to do with, the fact that they were not given class instruction for face-to-face for so long. And so teachers were just trying to figure out how they can provide work, but then they came back to school, a whole other grade different, and teachers start planning for that year and teaching things. And a lot of these students were like, whoa, I'm not there. And so the easing back pretty much didn't happen. They were just thrown back in. And I think that now the increase in behaviors is because students don't really get the work or they're not understanding it because, so to speak, they missed a very important year. So I definitely feel like that is huge and it has been. We have seen that a lot in the school.
Greg Wright:
A final question. I'm wondering whether either of you has a closing thought.
Kimberly Mattias
I feel hopeful. I think that there's a lot more awareness on mental health now since the pandemic. So many grants that I've seen that are being provided now to help students with mental health services and all other mental health agencies and things of that sort. I think the importance of integrating behavioral health has been huge in the last few years. So I'm very hopeful. I think what I would want is for the stigma to continue to decrease around mental health. There's always this stigma of people scared or afraid or maybe embarrassed to even say, hey something's wrong with me and I should seek that help. So I'm hoping with time and now that mental health is being so put out there that people feel less ashamed to seek help and that we can in that way reduce the instances of suicide and homicide and things of that sort because it's so important.
We talk about going every year to get a physical to check our bodies, our blood work, but our brains are if not more important, right? Because if we're not feeling okay, if our mental health is not okay, how are we supposed to feel good in any other aspect in life? So I feel the day that we begin to push mental health just as we push a yearly physical that day, we will be much better off when it comes to mental health in general.
I think it's so important. And I feel like for a long time it's been hidden or people have been singled out as crazy anytime they say something's wrong with me or I'm depressed or something. And people are just like, you're fine, get over it. But this is real and we live through this and mental health is so important and it's so real. And I think the we're getting better and I'm hopeful for it and we have a long way to go. But with everything that's happening right now, I feel like it has come to a streamline and we're focusing more on it. And that is all that we could really ask for right now.
Greg Wright:
Gary, in your closing thoughts, I was wondering if you're hopeful that our technology might help us here. I mean, is there a way to marry our minds with our technology? Because a lot of folks are looking at AI as like a threat technology, but you're saying that it might offer solutions here?
Gary Pettengell:
Yeah, I think on Kimberly's point, I mean I think that mental health is definitely being spoken about more. I mean I'm in meetings day in day out, certainly within school districts. And it is encouraging that it's taken so seriously. They're talking about it. I mean, we've done some work around mental health screening tools, self-assessments and taken on...
I mean, the figures show that students are significantly more likely to fill in an electronic assessment where they can do it on their phones on a tablet as opposed to paper. It makes it easier. And then it is taking that data to look at what works, what isn't working. And I think that's the thing. So it's providing the technology so more students can be supported and the school social workers, for example, to make their life easier, to provide that support. And then looking at that data and really taking on the school's, Rebecca Oliver's, vision from SSWAA is to then promote that best practice. In order to do that, the data helps. In order to go, look, we've been doing this and this is providing a positive student journey mapping. Well, let's replicate that in as many districts as we can.
Greg Wright:
Thank you. Kimberly, Gary, thank you for being our guests on social work talks, and I hope to hear from you in future.
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