This article is part of a series about mental health in Washtenaw County. It is made possible with funding from Washtenaw County's Public Safety and Mental Health Preservation Millage.
For the past five years, the
Washtenaw Intermediate School District (WISD) has worked alongside
Washtenaw County Community Mental Health (WCCMH) to offer more school-based behavioral health services and to intervene in behavioral health crisis situations sooner and more effectively. Funded by the county's
Community Mental Health and Public Safety Preservation Millage, the partnership has increased the presence of mental health professionals and licensed social workers within schools and provided students greater autonomy over their own mental health.
One example of these services is the millage-funded
Mental Health Mini-Grant Program, which gives students the opportunity to develop and lead mental health programming in their schools. As in previous years, public middle and high schools in the county were able to apply for grants worth up to $5,000. This year, elementary schools were able to request up to $2,000 as well. Sixteen of the 30 schools that requested funding in the 2023-2024 school year did so for the first time. The mini-grant program has awarded over $200,000 in mini-grants over a five-year period.
In a presentation to the
Washtenaw County Millage Advisory Committee, Shannon Novara, WISD's program manager for community and school partnerships, showcased some of the schools that received grants last school year and the projects students pursued. The funding round allowed approximately 800 students to participate in the development of these projects, and the projects impacted nearly 11,000 students overall.
The expanded grant funding led to the creation and expansion of calm spaces for students to utilize during the school day at
Perry Early Learning Center,
Tappan Middle School, and
Ypsilanti Community Middle School; the launch of a student-led mental health podcast at
Lincoln High School; and the return of events like Mental Health Day and Pride Prom at the
Ypsilanti Achieving College & Career Education (ACCE) program.
The millage also allowed the district to offer a mental health webinar series in October of last year. The
Mental Health Parent Education series covered a variety of mental health topics with a new hour-long webinar each month. The series featured mental health experts from "local schools, University of Michigan Psychiatric Emergency Services, National Alliance on Mental Illness-Washtenaw County, Ozone House and Washtenaw County Community Mental Health," according to the county’s website.
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Doug CoombeWISD program manager for community and school partnerships Shannon Novara.
"The series started in response to students and school staff telling us that mental health stigma among students has decreased, but the stigma is still quite prevalent among parents and caregivers," Novara said in an email. "Parents who participated seemed genuinely grateful for the information like how to talk to your kids about mental health, and what to do in a mental health crisis."
Mental health intervention and support is an ongoing goal for the district, according to Novara. That goal also takes shape in the
WISD Bridge Clinical Team, which offers individual or group counseling to students, along with care coordination, case management, and liaison support with schools, families, and community partners. The team consists of eight licensed clinical social workers who assist in developing multi-tiered behavioral intervention strategies and promote comprehensive positive behavior support systems.
"Everyone is impacted by mental health practices, and we want to give our community all that we can in our capacity," says DarNesha Green, WISD's Bridge Team mental health clinical supervisor. "Our work is about trying to find all of the gaps to make the schools more equitable spaces to serve students."
Green explains that the Bridge team’s presence in the schools has allowed for staff clinicians to provide a "continuum of care" for students, connecting them and their families with services inside and outside of the schools. Green hopes that the team can develop more community-based partnerships in order to expand the network of services clinicians can refer to when assisting students, and ensure that the care and support students receive goes beyond their time in WISD schools.
"We know we’re doing well if students are attending school and are reaching their individual goals," Green says. "We’re not trying to get students to complete goals the state has put in place. Our ultimate goal is to get feedback from the student saying that they feel confident."
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Doug CoombeWISD Bridge Team mental health clinical supervisor DarNesha Green.
But the Bridge team and other mental health-related programs aren’t only for students. The Educator Support Project, a new pilot program launched earlier this summer at
Whitmore Lake Public Schools, aims to positively impact teachers' mental health, better equip them to provide assistance to students in the classroom, and take care of their personal mental health outside of school.
"I’m having really interesting conversations in every building I’m in about the systems and about teacher wellness, and how to identify student needs before jumping into disciplinary action," says Kara Williams, WISD Bridge Team clinical social worker and creator of the Educator Support Project pilot. "Everyone in these buildings wants to help students. We’re all working towards the same goal."
The Educator Support Project, according to Williams, will consist of a series of videos covering topics like "general trust- and empathy-building with all students, supporting teacher wellness and sustainability, and supporting students who are experiencing anxiety or anger." Teachers will be able to view the videos at monthly pre-planned staff meetings. Williams says that this education series isn’t meant to add to teacher workloads or train teachers to be social workers, but to ensure that teachers know what resources are available to them to either guide struggling students or to alleviate teachers' own stresses.
"It struck me that while I’m supporting the mental health and wellness of students, it really begins with the teachers," Williams says. "These students disclose tough and sometimes scary things with their teachers, and I wanted to know if teachers in the district knew how to handle those moments and how to take care of themselves as well."
Williams spearheaded the pilot at Whitmore Lake due to her frequent presence in the Whitmore Lake schools, but hopes to bring the same format to other schools in the district once the pilot ends in spring next year. She says presenting these topics in video format will allow other schools to customize the content to best fit their students' and staff's needs. At the end of the video series, Williams hopes for staff to take part in discussion groups about the topics, as well as the ways they were presented, to make the series as "accessible and equitable" as possible for all staff members. She also wants to continue discussions with teachers to find out what aspects of the pilot are working and which need to be improved before ultimately expanding the program.
"We want to develop something that can be used throughout the county," Williams says. "I’m very much thinking about the future and have a lot of goals, but we’ll be building the program as we go based on the voices of those that matter most."
Rylee Barnsdale is a Michigan native and longtime Washtenaw County resident. She wants to use her journalistic experience from her time at Eastern Michigan University writing for the Eastern Echo to tell the stories of Washtenaw County residents that need to be heard.
All photos by Doug Coombe.