County partners offering mental health supports

Mar. 8—With mental health initiatives becoming more prevalent in schools, the Yuba County Office of Education (YCOE) has taken strides to foster wellness for area students through its community partnerships.

Lindhurst High School's Blazer Support Center — a wellness hub for students and their families — is the product of collaboration between YCOE, Marysville Joint Unified School District, Yuba County Health and Human Services, and Peach Tree Health to provide clinical behavioral health services.

Students and families are able to schedule sessions with a team of professionals including a full-time therapist, a part-time therapist and two part-time social workers. When not attending a session, students can also use the Support Center as a mental break area by participating in mindful activities to destress. White noise and light music are played while students are in session for added privacy. The center has also been providing therapy dogs since March 2023.

Marysville Joint Unified hosts several wellness centers across the district, but the Blazer Support Center is currently the only wellness hub that provides clinical support. According to YCOE Wellness Director Huma Khaliqi, the hub was established after Health and Human Services determined that the surrounding region was a "high needs area" for mental health resources.

"We also surveyed students and parents, and all the answers reflected a behavioral health need. That's how this project came about. That's where we're going from here: what's our highest area of need?" Khaliqi said.

According to these surveys and data collected through counselor referrals, anxiety, depression and problems in family dynamics were some of the most common mental health needs among visitors. The Support Center recorded 2,625 total visits between its opening in January 2023 and May the same year. From August 2023 to Jan. 31 this year, the wellness hub recorded 1,011 total visits between 421 unique visitors, the Appeal previously reported.

"We really wanted to make sure that we were designing a program that met the needs. When you talk about expansion and duplicating the model in other high school settings or community settings, it shouldn't look the same because this has been designed specifically to meet the needs of this local context," Deputy Superintendent Bobbi Abold said.

Through the Support Center, YCOE and its partners aim to address mental illnesses before they become severe by improving timely access to services, outreach, and reducing cultural stigma associated with mental illness or seeking help. Additional wellness hubs are planned for Yuba Gardens Intermediate School and Cedar Lane Elementary School, and plans for the site at Yuba Gardens are well underway, Khaliqi said.

"For our Intermediate School, (the data) doesn't look that different. Anxiety is high, depression is high, and a lot of this was after COVID. We saw a lot of that isolation and high levels of anxiety. We're going to survey the students again at Yuba Gardens just to get a feel for how they are now that it is mid-year because we really want to accurately reflect what we're doing at the center to fit their needs," she said.

The mental health team at Lindhurst High School has made efforts to connect with students around campus in order to address their needs one-on-one. Prevention specialists like Samantha Duarte are seen as reliable support to students who need a listening ear.

"A lot of times, kids don't come here necessarily for therapeutic support. They just want to come in here to vent or utilize the 15-minute break. When they come in, it's typically because they're having a bad day. ... A lot of times, the kids just feel comfortable knowing there's somebody there to listen to them. Sometimes, they really do want to talk, and sometimes they're just having drama going on in school and their relationships. Just knowing that they were able to come in and talk to somebody, and for someone to listen and give a little bit of advice, then they feel more comfortable coming in next time. ... It's a nice, warm feeling knowing that the kids feel comfortable with you," Duarte said.

According to Abold, YCOE is engaging in a strategic planning process to identify priority areas to help expand wellness and mental health support.

"The more people that know about the work that we're really doing, the more opportunities open up for us to do more in the community," Abold said. "We want kids to do well, and we know they carry a lot of baggage with them. If we can break down those barriers, then they're going to engage in school and they're going to find their path to being a productive citizen, and happy too."

___

(c)2024 the Appeal-Democrat (Marysville, Calif.)

Visit the Appeal-Democrat (Marysville, Calif.) at www.appeal-democrat.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.