As a follow-up to last weeks episode talking about children with special needs, cohost Cortney finishes her month by talking about the education system and they crucial part it plays in the mental health of todays children. To understand where we are, they start by talking about the origin of the modern-day systems and the current struggles our kids are going through. To wrap up the episode, Chris and Cortney do their best to offer their suggestions to possible answers for kids and the education system they are in.
Tune in to see Education’s Part in Mental Health Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Listen for the following takeaways from the show:
- The one point that they want to talk about is that the school system needs to look at and address the whole child.
- When looking at services, they are primarily designed for the younger ages because the younger and smaller something is the more power in their emotions. That means the middle and high school kids don’t get the same help.
- The go over some statistics as it relates to how children in school have been affected by the pandemic. Psychiatryonline.org and MHA National.
- Sir Ken Robinson is an Education Guru who mentions that the way schools are taught stifles creativity.
- While schools offer different option like the 504 plan and IEP plans, do they really benefit the kids?
- There is more collaboration with outside providers but the time spent is very brief.
- They would love to see more embedded staff and services inside the schools.
- The pandemic increased the awareness of how the kids have been affected.
- Parents can make a big impact, but they need to not beat themselves up with kids struggle.
- Schools are doing the best they can with the resources they are given and how much they can actually do for the kids.
- They wrap up but talking about some solutions they think could be done to shift the tide in a positive direction when dealing with mental health in the school systems.
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Episode #180 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome to Through a Therapist’s Eyes where we talk about really interesting things. That’s a different introduction. This. Why did I do a different introduction, Cortney,
Cortney Donelson: this is just going to be a different kind of podcast. I think a different show.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. What is the title? Education’s part in mental health.
So we’re going to be talking about the education system and that is going to be kind of edgy. I do want to kind of really, before we even get very far into this, Cortney, you kind of qualified it on the Facebook live part. I want to say it again, right from the get-go. We decided to do this show after thought who should we, how we want to go about this?
And we decided it’s an important, I decided, I guess I should say it’s an important issue [00:01:00] that I don’t want to shy away from. Although, you know, I don’t, we’ll get a little political. I’m going to get political. I, you still, Craig let’s get political. Okay. We’re going to first some opinions around some thoughts around, and I’m going to kind of come at it as I usually do from a mental health perspective, but I’m also coming at it from a parent.
But anything that I do say I would want to speak for you, but this was your qualifier, right. You know, we’re not really saying anything about specific teachers nor even in administration. It’s really the systemic kind of concerns when we express concerns. And why don’t you to keep that in mind? Because honestly, I didn’t say this when we were talking to Cortney, but I think teachers are heroes.
I mean, they have been. Oh my gosh and the pandemic just, they they’ve been up against it. So anyway, this is through a therapist’s eyes, got the book out, re understanding emotions of becoming your best self. Don’t forget about that guys. It’s a good book out there. A lot of really cool things about mental health, good chapters, really applicable to your lives.
Short, easy to read and [00:02:00] super well edited by Ms. Cortney Donelson herself. Thank you for that. This is where you get personal insights from a therapist through your own home and in your car. See the world through the lens of a therapist have been doing this since 1995 in many different ways, help us with the five-star reviews.
I really thank you for listening to us around the world. We, we, I appreciate it personally. It makes it really worth doing, knowing that people are listening and, and we see that people are we endeavor to figure this thing out together. I say that, I mean that we can’t do that. If you’re not here. Five-star reviews help us out apple iTunes, let you make some comments that makes a big difference.
Please help us because we want to expand this year. The human emotional experience. Let’s kind of get going before we do Neil. You might want to join in. You can head nod, nod. You can jump in if you want to happy birthday day two. All right. Facebook live and [00:03:00] YouTube. I am not going to continue singing, but Ms.
Donaldson, I got you a old fashioned wild blueberry pie to celebrate your birthday
Cortney Donelson: to. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Your
Chris Gazdik: birthday. Ma’am. Thank you. So current event, I want to hit a current event real quick. I haven’t really talked about the world events in the Ukraine and I don’t know why I haven’t probably should have.
I actually heard another podcast, you know, talking about it, my new favorite or mine, I wouldn’t say favorite. My new, very well-liked skeptic’s guide to the universe. They started talking about it because you know, they’re skeptics and you’re talking about the different factors of scientifically it’s a science show, right?
This is a mental health show. And I’m probably going to comment about it a couple of times in different ways, because it’s a huge event. It’s a huge, it seems like a [00:04:00] complete nightmare. And I’m going to kind of maybe make some pokes at the mental health aspects of war. My gosh. You know, I want everyone to be thoughtful about this.
If you’re a prayerful person to be prayerful about this, it is a major thing that’s going on. And the mental health ramifications for all of us all around the world are. It’s just profound. We hadn’t seen anything like this since the Gulf war Iraq. I know different places around the world, you know have different conflicts that are, you know, we fight as humans.
And the tragic reality is what comes out of that in not just little children, but in grown men. We have people coming back from war with trauma. We learned a lot about PTSD through Vietnam. I really want people to be thoughtful prayer for all about the trauma impacts that this is creating you know, whatever side you believe [00:05:00] or support or wherever you are in this Russian soldiers are being traumatized.
Ukrainian children are being traumatized. Poland, citizens are being traumatized. People barely involved in his conflict all around the world are having nightmares and dreams about these things. I could tell you that because that’s what our human being. Does with trauma watch a newscast that affects you.
So I think I’ll stop there. Be thoughtful and prayerful about the mental health ramifications of these horrific horrifying, terrifying, horrific realities that we are seeing and witnessing in the world today. Any thoughts?
Cortney Donelson: No, I mean, I just, I echo everything you say it’s it’s hard to watch. It’s hard to think about and it’s coming on the heels of so many other global traumas.
I mean, it’s just one punch after another. So it’s yeah. I have friends in both countries, so yeah. [00:06:00] Yeah. So it’s, it’s hard.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. I’ll be, I’ll be kind of commenting a little bit more about, you know, some of the mental health aspects that, that come to mind as they, as they do another one’s propaganda, by the way.
I’ll probably mention that maybe next time. The, the, the social media realities that, I mean, that’s a big mental health, you know, reality. So okay. Onward to the schools. Let’s talk about the schools. I tell you what, don’t answer this, answer, this Cortney, who’d you vote for last time? No, don’t answer this.
That’s terrible. What do you think about the government part of the schools? All right. Well, how do we deal with this conversation? We’re going to have to mention some of the things that are systemic, and I don’t want to upset people. I love your qualification you know, which we started out with right from the get, go on this episode, because there’s a lot of really good people that are struggling a lot from the inside of this whole thing.
[00:07:00] This is a dynamic issue trying to think about our children and the mental health aspects of it. And I just said sort of silly wise what I just said with, you know, whether you’re upset with Bush, for testing or, you know, what Trump’s plan was for the schools or different governmental fundings. I mean, people can get really edgy about these things in it.
I think it’s gotta be a part of the conversation but I want you to bear with us and, and see, you know, how can you contribute to the conversation? Right. So let’s start with that. I, I, and if you don’t want to comment Gortney, and then that’s, that’s fine, but I wanted to start with the premise that I think you created this idea.
And brought it to me and we agreed to talk about it. You had said that, you know, if they’re going to teach a child, then they need to be aware of the whole child. That’s a, that’s a big part of the premise that I really thought through this topic with tonight.
Cortney Donelson: Yeah. And so my initial thought was, how can you teach and how can children learn if there are [00:08:00] mental issues preventing that from happening.
And when you think about education, shouldn’t the education system include not just what you learn, but what you’re feeling, what you’re going through, what you’re what you’re thinking. And so that’s what I meant by not just be aware of the whole child, but address the whole child. Like I want to take it the next step and, and say education should include mental health, education and
Chris Gazdik: awareness.
Let me tell you about my glee about that. Right. And I’ve said this before my child. Oh. And by the way, you’re, you’re coming at this from kind of the perspective of, you know, a parent. And I think I don’t want to speak for you. Yeah.
Cortney Donelson: Yeah. I’m coming at it from a parent whose two children have been through seven different schools.
A lot of the moves have become, have happened because of mental health issues that were came up in the schools. And also [00:09:00] as, because one of those schools was a homeschool. So I was also a homeschool parent
Chris Gazdik: becoming a lot more popular, particularly with pandemic, but yeah. Okay. Yeah, I was full of glee as a younger man.
When my child came back from the school, maybe 15 years ago, second grade, third grade something, maybe it was first grade. I don’t, I don’t know. But they were talking about in the little health book, the, the feelings and emotions were like, we got to mention, you got to mention you, we gotta mention, you know, and cause I don’t know about you, but being older as I am at 49 years old.
Right. Like we grow up and I mean, there was none of that.
Cortney Donelson: No, no, there was, there was PE or you know, gym class back then is what it was called. Right. But no, there wasn’t, there was health class, but it was all physical health. Got
Chris Gazdik: nothing in health class. No.
Cortney Donelson: Yeah. And I agree. I, I [00:10:00] do think elementary school has a step up on middle or junior high school in high school.
On that area.
Chris Gazdik: That’s a big thing that we’ll, we’ll find you, you stole the thunder in some of this because absolutely. You know, we, which I don’t understand. I don’t, I don’t understand that at all. Any administrators or decision makers out there, listen, I know we get our heartstrings tied to the littler kid.
Here’s a mental health fact, the more young and small, the more emotionally powerful you think about that when a baby is in the room, that is the most powerful, emotional force, the younger and smaller. Somebody told me that in my journeys. And I’m like, yeah, that’s really true. Well, so our heartstrings get strong with the little lady bitty kids are so cute and malleable and adorable and they run and they can barely run.
They kind of jumped in. I mean, they’re so cute watching them play soccer, so we want to help them, [00:11:00] but they turn into a middle-schooler by God. It was teenagers in high school. They’re not cute anymore. They’re not, you know, they’re annoying rubbed, you’re all there. And so we’re not going to, why is, why can we not have university reality between the different developmental stages?
They’re not adults, man. It’s I told you, we’re getting, I’m going to be genuine a little bit
Cortney Donelson: here. Yeah. I would love to see, I mean, there are requirements for even high school to take one credit of PE and health, but for the graduate one credit, that’s it in North Carolina anyway. But what if, what if they had to also take a mental health class?
What if they had to have a semester of in school counseling one day a week? What if, I mean, there’s so many options to offer middle and high schoolers that are just
Chris Gazdik: the end here. We’re going to kick around, you know, like what are some solutions and boy, that’s going to be, that was a tough challenge for me to [00:12:00] brainstorm.
I’m not going to lie. I’m not going to say. Like last week we talked about children with special needs and I did that. Nice. Got it. Listen to last episode, she totally corrected me. And you what’d you say high school, do you shorted me? I felt of the feedback. So you’ll know what that is from last episode, but now I lost my thought.
Let me go to the data of what, you know, I talked to a friend of mine who works in the schools and he helped me see some of this. I don’t want to spend much too much time on this, but scurrying through, cause we’re not a statistic show, a data show, but there were some cool things in this article. It’s in the show notes, you can check it out for yourself, but prior to COVID-19 centers for disease control and prevention, everyone loves the CDC these days.
Right. You know, the, the data found basically one in five kids had a mental disorder. Okay. But only about 20% of those children received care from a mental health. [00:13:00] It’s a great, huge lacking need. Furthermore, and I’m going to talk about the crisis of the pandemic and what that created here shortly in a little bit of a segment, but basically I don’t know, these are statistics stuff.
I’ll do it real quick for, from March, 2020 to October, 2020 mental health related emergency department visits increased 24% for children ages five to 11. Don’t worry about these numbers and stuff. Cause the comment I have about it is, is, is to make the point it’s 31% of those ages, 12 to 17 compared with 2019 emergency department visits.
Again, that’s CDC stuff, but you know, another couple of numbers, 4,000 out of maybe a hundred thousand us clinical psychologists, our child and adolescent psychologist. So there’s not a lot of people that are working in the psychology field. So it would seem You’ve heard us talk about the pandemic has increased all of these things.
That is real. I included [00:14:00] those percentages just to get your brain to realize, oh, there really is data out there that demonstrates, like this stuff is increasing more emergency home visits, more abuse cases being found more, you know, substance abuse among teenagers, more violence in our schools, the disciplinary problems, more developmental delays in so far as meeting developmental milestones socially with your kids.
This is all very real.
Cortney Donelson: It is. And, and I think everyone knows that even without the statistics, cause we hear about it, we see it, we experience it. I mean, even local schools are, are getting, you know, see-through backpacks to help curb the violence,
Chris Gazdik: mental health America reported that the mental health impacts of COVID-19 are more pronounced in age groups.
Under 25 on are placing a generation of risk of long-term effects. If these issues are not addressed early, evidence suggests that around nine in 10 pause dramatic, right. Nine and 10 young [00:15:00] people are screening screened with moderate to severe depression, eight in 10 with moderate to severe anxiety as a result of this stuff.
That number popped
Cortney Donelson: at me. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: it’s huge. And kids are resilient. They’ll get stuff kind of getting together. The North Carolina, school-based mental health policy. And I want you to freeze this in your mind cause we’ll, we’ll, it’s kind of what we want to talk about, about what’s in place. That’s where we’re going next.
This is an example of that. So in June of 2020, not 1920, right June, that’s not that long ago. The pandemic in the middle of the pandemic, 2022 years ago, right? Session law, 2020 dash seven was approved by our state of North Carolina general assembly. It’s an act to require the state board of education to adopt a school-based mental health policy and to require K [00:16:00] through 12 school units to adopt and to implement a school-based mental health plan.
That includes a mental health training program and a suicide risk referral protocol. Sounds great. Like who’s making this plan. That’s my question. Do we have professionals involved in that to identify what this particular school in mid state, Utah bright. I mean, who’s involved in this process because one of the things you’re going to find is that you have really high levels of variants between states,
Cortney Donelson: even between schools based on
Chris Gazdik: the type of counties in each state.
And as you cite out literally every single school. And it depends upon, I understand from talking to people in the schools on a particular administrator, really, if the guy or [00:17:00] gal understands mental health, you’re good.
Cortney Donelson: Well, at least your policies. Good policies. Good. Is there accountability? Is there, I mean, what is the policy, do?
I don’t know
Chris Gazdik: if. You’re not in good shape because there’s not a priority there. There’s not an awareness there. There’s not like a reality there. Goodness gracious. We’re going to talk about different things. I’m going to skip the rest of this. Cause I was going to tell a quick little story that I thought
is important, that the mentality that the systemic realities, that the culture in our system that goes on is, is troublesome. Now I haven’t talked very openly about it, but just as a little bit of an example about it, and I know this is a little bit risky, but I’m going to do it. I’m [00:18:00] going to talk about it and be genuine because it bothered me as a parent to the core.
Okay. My kids struggled a little bit in schools and whatnot for various reasons, which I’ll leave out. But I was having a conversation with a particular teacher in middle school. And this teacher, honest to God, was talking to me about my son and I’m talking to her because I care about the kid I’m engaged and the conversation was, I guess, okay, what’s going on in the classroom?
This is what I know about my son. This is what he’s seeing in the classroom. You know, I’m coordinating, I’m very, you know, good. I feel like I’m a pretty good communicator. I’m kind of caring. You know, I care about the teachers and their perspective and, you know, and I forget how the conversation began to switch over into, oh, I knew exactly what it was.
I had a question, you know, like, you know, well, I want my son to get invested in the culture of the school. What are some groups that are, I know there’s this golden Eagles club or something like that. And her face twisted [00:19:00] and turned in this different fashion of condescending meanness. And you know what this woman said to me, the dad of a son who’s inquiring about the golden Eagles group or something.
He’s not golden eagle material.
Cortney Donelson: Oh,
Chris Gazdik: I mean to tell you, I could have just, I don’t even, you get my, you get my drift, you get my truth. I was disgusted. I was absolutely floored that that would come out of someone’s thought process, let alone their mouth, to be honest with you. You know? And, and, and I, and I, I told that story a little bit to kind of, because I think there’s, there’s a lot of frustration with mental health in schools with discipline, with, you know God, you all your middle school teachers.
It’s amazing what you deal with. It could be. Yeah, I wouldn’t, it’s, it’s a tough job. You’re up against a [00:20:00] lot. And, and mental health stuff, man. These kids are tough. I did the day reporting program with, with kids that were suspended or expelled from school had some sort of misdemeanor or felony legal charge.
And instead of going to basically kid jail, they came to our school. So I was actually a school administrator the day reporting. It was a grant funded thing, tough kids to deal with. Right. So where are you at with your thoughts? Cortney I’ll spin us into like what’s actually in the schools, but I just want to tune in with you to check, you know, w what are you, what are you thinking?
I feel like I’ve gone on too long.
Cortney Donelson: No, not at all. I mean, I’m listening. The statistics were somewhat surprising, but not really. I mean that eight out of 10 and nine out of 10 have anxiety and depression. That was it’s sad. And I know teachers are a lot of times they’re, you know, [00:21:00] prevented from doing things.
They have certain goals, they have certain policies. And so I understand that, but like you said, this isn’t, we’re not here to, you know, throw teachers under the, under the bus or even administrators. But I keep going back to, I mentioned this before the podcast show started on the Facebook, I think, but our current education system was founded.
With the premise of everyone is going to an assembly line. It was a hundred years ago when everything was kind of established. So that’s why all the seats are in rows. That’s why the teacher stands at the front. That’s why you walk in, in single file lines. That’s, you know, it’s all based on getting kids to sit still, listen, and then go redo repetitive work,
Chris Gazdik: OT, PT, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapist, and people that work with kids are shuttering in their boots with that reality, because yeah, that doesn’t work well with kids.
They need to bounce, they need to move, they [00:22:00] need to play,
Cortney Donelson: you know, this type of thing. And so I just think our whole education system is antiquated. I think the mindsets are old. There’s a, I don’t know if you’re familiar with sir Ken Robinson. He, he he has a lot of Ted talks out there, but he is like an education guru from the UK.
One of his talks was education. Does education kill creativity? And it kinda, I want to piggyback on that and ask the question. Does our current education system, as it was set up for a hundred years ago, does it kill ability to have good mental health? Is it forcing people into boxes that they don’t fit into anymore?
Is it creating stress and more anxiety and depression in our kids? Just because of the way it’s set up and the restraints that teachers have and all of the things put on administrators, shoulders? I don’t know. I was just, it’s a lot
Chris Gazdik: there and I think there’s, there’s, there’s absolutely good. Good things to think about.
I want us to come together as. Parents as school [00:23:00] professionals, as mental health professionals in vole, including PT, OT speech, right. And as an government officials to, to really, I don’t come on, don’t give me these platforms of I’m doing school reform, I’m doing education, I’m an educator, and I’m going to reform the system and all that, like stop with this nonsense noise.
It’s been, I’ve been hearing it my entire adult life and I’m sick of it. I’m being honest. I’m sick of it. I want like real groups thinking about how can we really implement a helpful change?
Cortney Donelson: You came, you mentioned PT, OT, speech, and all those things that are part of typical IEP or 5 0 4 or all of those specialized you know, assistance programs for kids who are struggling with disabilities or learning differences or things like that.
Right. Can I ask why there isn’t a mental health professional in that category or that list of resources or therapies that people receive as part of those [00:24:00] good catch, because
Chris Gazdik: I, you know it in there. So let me ask you it wasn’t in my sentence, but it is. So let me, let me ask you, I’m curious as just a parent, like what, what do you think is available in the schools like now?
Like this is going to be a segment on what’s there. Okay. What do you think is there,
Cortney Donelson: I don’t know if you want me to answer this?
Chris Gazdik: Well, it can be deleted, I guess, if need
Cortney Donelson: be okay. What variance? This is based on my experience of seven different schools for two children. Okay. My experience is there’s almost nothing.
And this is why I say that because my children have their IEP and 500 fours and all these other things that provide accommodations and they require special counseling therapy, you know, everything on the side, but it’s never included in that program is not offered as part of their school day.[00:25:00] But what is offered is administrators who used to work in special education, who claimed to know all about it, but who are yet doing things counter intuitively encounter productively for my children in their needs.
Chris Gazdik: So that’s interesting. No, that’s a good answer. And it’s genuine with what you see. I
Cortney Donelson: also see guidance counselor. Who are a part time or who are only focused on the next level, like college preparation or who are just doing paperwork because there’s so much paperwork required. They’re
Chris Gazdik: inundated.
Cortney Donelson: Yeah.
And so, yeah, I, back when I was in school, a guidance counselor, wasn’t just a college prep person or a part-time role. It was a full time. You could walk in, you could say, I’m struggling. Can we have a 30 minute session? And I don’t know what happened to that, but I don’t see it anymore.
Chris Gazdik: It’s interesting that you said that last part, because I was [00:26:00] going to suggest that.
As of like 15 years ago in prior, they’re kind of really I’m suspicious was pretty much nothing. It was school counselors. Your experience of having you just said session, I don’t know that there were sessions, there were, it was a chat, it was caring school counselors that would, that would maybe talk to you.
And that was essentially the extent of it, because honestly you got to understand as a counselor, myself. Okay. I have an understanding of what that word means. School counselors are not counselors. No, they’re not. I don’t know why we have that term. I don’t either, but here this next sentence that, because they, they do, they do counsel someone for college or for your education plan or this type of thing, but that’s not counseling.
And I think a lot of people feel like their school counselor is doing counseling. They’re not, no, they’re not, but there are counselors in schools. [00:27:00] How’s that grab you.
Cortney Donelson: That’s great. I don’t know of
Chris Gazdik: any. Yeah, there are, there absolutely are now. And I want to submit that maybe as in like the far, the last five to 10 years, this has become we’ve, we’re getting momentum here.
And this is where I want to be really uplifting and really like praising of the efforts because it is improving. There is some stuff happening. Check this out with my brainstorm, that my friend helped me identify with my broad question because he’s in the schools and I’ve talked to a couple of people about this.
This is what’s really already in place 5 0 4 plans. You mentioned that before. I’m not going to go too far into it. Individual plans to help kids more in depth involved. I indicated individual education plans, IEP. I’m not going to go into that much at all, but. They are attached if needed weekly bi-weekly sessions with psychologists, brief interventions is what we see brief though.
These are mostly very [00:28:00] short sessions, 15, 17 minutes to go back to class. There’s not a lot of long in-depth therapy like I do for an hour or more with kids. These are all a lot of brief stuff. Kids are let me see. Developmental delayed and, or very severe emotional disabilities. That’s who gets individualized education plans.
They’re classified as other health impaired OCD for instance falls under 5 0 4 plans. There has to be severe disabilities needing one-on-one attention or additional support for subjects. This is where you get PT, OT stuff. That’s really for kids that have autism or severe, we mentioned on the show last time, physical problems like with wheelchairs and stuff that you kind of gets the IEP piece.
Seizure disorders, severe, severe learning disabilities. You know, that type of stuff. Short term school-based therapy with LPCs. LCSW is credentialed. Clinicians are engaged [00:29:00] in the schools right now. I don’t think a lot of people realize that they don’t know that. Okay. A lot of times they get outside providers to come in to engage the school.
And they have a dedicated person, literally one clinician that does counseling therapy, psychotherapy services that’s for the whole school. And they carry a caseload in that school like that exists. I don’t think a lot of people know that grief counseling, domestic violence groups, they have groups that actually engage kids in like a group therapy thing.
Therapist has to call the parent, get compliance or agreement, you know, for HIPAA related stuff. It’s like my therapy office in the school. That happens. I don’t think people know that. Let me see. Some is in school-based availability of students and staff. What I say, oh, domestic, the groups are in, in schools, in there available for students and [00:30:00] staff.
This is not common though. Elementary and middle school have more embedded supports with staff. There is a lot of collaboration that exists now with outside agencies and getting suicide, homicidal risk assessments done. They actually go into your home. I don’t think a lot of people know that there’s OTPT speech.
You know, these things though are really, really brief focused. That’s a problem. And they’re really only in element, not only they’re really an elementary schools, the younger, the more available, the older, not so much. Now we don’t do much for high schoolers. They’re high schoolers. We don’t do that. Also socioeconomically challenged places, get the services the other schools do not.
And I can tell you they’re [00:31:00] needed there. How much of that is a surprise? How much of that is new?
Cortney Donelson: How, yeah, half of it’s a surprise half. Half. I don’t think that that maybe it’s not communicated to parents. Maybe it, maybe it’s only for students who have those more severe disabilities or you know, known issues.
And so I wonder, like you said, eight out of 10, nine out of 10 students are struggling with anxiety or depression. So it’s not reaching them because theirs is silent. Theirs is invisible. Theirs is not talked about. And I still think there’s a stigma, particularly in high school that you don’t talk about it.
You don’t mention it. Yeah. And so, you know, I think all that’s great. I didn’t know half of that. That’s interesting. But yeah, I could have used all of that for my children. So why didn’t I know all that.
Chris Gazdik: Right. And that’s a big, important factor and, and [00:32:00] point, like, people don’t know how you supposed to ask beetle.
No parents don’t know. I don’t think a lot of times teachers might not realize they don’t. A really important point just came into my head and left. And you said something the stigma now, no something else that disabilities crap.
Cortney Donelson: The BA the 80% or 90% are struggling with anxiety and depression and that silent.
And no one knows about it.
Chris Gazdik: It was something about disabilities. I talked to somebody in, in the, in the schools that are in the schools and they mentioned a big factor with this. And I, I just lost it. I’m going to have to tune into my notes and see where it’s in. Cause it’s in there somewhere. But yeah, I mean, there’s, there are a lot of things that absolutely are in place that I don’t think people really realize about and know, you know, how to, how to tap into place.
Now, a lot of what you’ve got to understand, and I talked to Casey about this, [00:33:00] our very own Casey here at Metro Alanna. She used to work with an agency called Kintegra. Now states across the land. I don’t know about other countries if honestly, I really don’t know much is a special note, by the way, a qualifier.
This is what I see in the states. I don’t know about other countries I’m going to, I’m just going to complete complete ignorance, complete and total ignorance there. So. Over the last few years, like there’s been a lot more invested energy in getting companies, right. There are companies like Metro Atlanta psychotherapy associates has an entire wing of our company.
We don’t. But for instance, that works with grants that works with Medicaid billing that has, I have a staff person that goes to bland middle school, and that’s where they work, but that’s, they’re my employee. Right? So the schools are, are, are kind of [00:34:00] getting hip to the idea of let’s get these companies bonded with us.
And my point came back that I lost it came back to me. I’m so glad it did because unfortunately, one of the big factors that happens for that embedding, cause I want a lot more embedded in the schools. That’s a takeaway. If you will, there, we need to have a lot more embedded people, staff therapists of all sorts in the schools, but when you are, you’re fighting a systemic cultural ambivalence and avoidance and stigma and stigma.
And here’s another thing that came to me in that same conversation. I’m glad I’m going to be able to fit this in the issues are avoided primarily because I [00:35:00] think the school administrating the teaching, the professionals don’t know what to do with it so I can help you identify your child has a learning disability.
Great. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Are they in therapy? Great. Ask your therapist. If they have any suggestions for me, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had, I’ve had that ask of me. I’m kinda like, you know, in my mind, listen, I’ll talk to the teacher. I have had many conversations with the teacher about the kid and the dynamics I have come to see, of course it’s hippo released and I think they’re helpful conversations, but I’m kind of like, you know what teach, I would love a teacher to kind of give me a suggestion about how to help the kid with their education plan in therapy
Cortney Donelson: sessions.
Right? Right. Yeah. It needs to be a two-way street, I think.
Chris Gazdik: Right? So this staff person is embedded in the school and they are, they’re fighting completely [00:36:00] upstream
Cortney Donelson: and overtaxed. And I understand all that. Yeah, but what do you mean? Good. I just mean they, I mean, I feel like teachers are, I don’t know whether a term used, but they’re handcuffed to a lot of the state regulations, a lot of what they’re supposed to be teaching a lot of teaching to the test.
A lot of kids stand it now they can’t. And so that leaves no margin for looking at the rest of the child and determining, okay, why aren’t they learning? Is it based on mental health issues? Do they need supports? Do they need resources because they don’t even have the resources to.
Chris Gazdik: And they need them themselves.
Cortney Donelson: Right? Okay.
Chris Gazdik: I’ve had lots of therapy experiences with teachers telling you they’re absolutely doing their dog gone best to help your child. And I think that you need to come along with them and recognize that because they want to just teach. I like the regulations. We can’t go deregulation, you know, just [00:37:00] scrap all the regulations.
I mean, that’d be kind of cool. There’s a part of me that says I would love to just scrap all the regulations and start over. I, you, I don’t know
Cortney Donelson: yet. Well, you know, me, I want to raise the whole system with a bulldozer and start the whole education system over again from scratch. So I’m on board.
Chris Gazdik: I didn’t want to repeat that whole thing and start over.
We can’t just totally deregulate, but I think that you need some, some, some core requirements across. The land so that we have some things like having mental health class in your high school, whatever, maybe, you know, but, but the real, the real reality here is teachers get so frustrated because they can’t do what they know is effective with this child.
Right. And it burns and hurts their heart. Like parents, you got to understand, teachers are taking this home with them emotionally. [00:38:00] When they, when they know a kid is struggling, they’re hurting and struggling with them and don’t know what to do. And can’t try things because it’s out of the parameters of what I’m allowed to do.
Terrible.
Cortney Donelson: Yeah. And I would take, and I have seen administrators feel the same way. They’re, they’re, you know, restricted by the state, which is restricted by the next level up. And so. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: So let’s go there with the government component. Can we talk about this issue without talking about a government reality?
I don’t think we can, and I know that’s going to be real edgy with people. I don’t care what your political persuasion is. If you’re left to right in the middle, whatever blue, red, green, or you are, there’s a green party green party, you know, what’s the, [00:39:00] what’s the libertarian people there is there a purple
Cortney Donelson: party?
And now I think those are the centrists. I don’t know. Purple, et cetera, et
Chris Gazdik: cetera. Maybe I’m independent. I’m gonna say I’m a purple person. I don’t, you know, all of these things are like, okay,
they are tasked with making straight up decisions about money. And regulations and they need help.
Cortney Donelson: Can we just stop there? Like
please just stop
Chris Gazdik: there. They need help with that because they’re not educators, they’re not physical disability experts. They’re not they’re politicians. They’re politicians. And there’s an out of touchness I think for sure, when we talk about education reform is an out of touchness. That is [00:40:00] really been pervasive again, my entire adult life.
And I’m so sick at that part. I’m so sick of that. You know, we need educators who have studied education to be in charge of the education system
Cortney Donelson: here, here. Can
Chris Gazdik: I how’s that sentence land, you know, and I’m afraid they’re not, they’re just not the boards of education are, I mean, do they, they’re disabled they’re they can’t say we’re going to do this.
I mean, we’re fighting about what kind of religious doctrine we’re going to be teaching in schools and gender norms and all this kind of stuff. Hey look, those, those are important too. And they’re not demeaning those issues. I don’t mean to anyway, but I, I want to get on what’s the best way to teach our freaking kids.
And I, and I submit there’s, there’s definitely a lot of. Redesigning. We [00:41:00] could do have him sit in a circle for crying out loud. Like you said, the rose, can we just start there? I want people to come together to figure these things out where you’ve got something to, to figure out, okay, now my ranting too much now,
Cortney Donelson: but let’s next.
Chris Gazdik: That’d be a
Cortney Donelson: yes, no, no. It just, it’s a huge, it’s a huge multi-faceted problem. And mental health is one of the things that is struggling because it’s a huge multi-faceted problem.
Chris Gazdik: And it has been exemplified with the pandemic right now. The pandemic has been really tough on our kids, all of us adults as well, everyone.
And I think there’s a silver lining here. You should see your eyes on Facebook live and YouTube. Y’all tell us. We’re aware. Now we have woke up [00:42:00] adults, administrators, teachers, government officials. I think kids are woke up to like, this is important. And what I’ve experienced over this period of time has been tough.
Cortney Donelson: You know what? My local church in North Carolina, the church I attend, you know what they’ve been doing this whole month of March,
Chris Gazdik: the month of March, what
Cortney Donelson: they’ve called it with it. So they’ve called it the house of blues or I hope. And the whole month worship is they bring in blues musicians for worship.
And because the idea is we all have the blues stop throwing it under the rug and pretending that no one is sad. Stop pretending that everything’s okay. Let’s all admit that this has been a tough two years. Yeah. Then what they’ve done is they have taken the middle and high school. The youth and each week that they need, it has been a [00:43:00] different mental health topic.
Interesting. And they brought in pastoral counselors and they brought in speakers and they’ve broken into small groups with volunteer leaders, leading discussions of, from everything, from suicide to why won’t my parents accept me for who I am and everything else in between. And then they’ve taken the elementary school kids.
And every week they’re doing something with them too, and it’s been phenomenal and hundreds of kids are showing up. Wow,
Chris Gazdik: really?
Cortney Donelson: And I just think if the schools did something similar and woven into their curriculums and made it not such a stigma to admit, Hey, I’m depressed or, Hey, something’s wrong. I need help.
What could happen? You
Chris Gazdik: might learn a lot more about math.
Cortney Donelson: Exactly science
Chris Gazdik: and reading literature. Yeah, seriously. They, I think they, I think they would. Yeah, absolutely. It, when those things are woven in, you know, it’s [00:44:00] funny, my brain did a little journey. When you were talking about that, what was done? I mean, you’ve, you’ve seen these school programs where they bring in speakers and presenters sometimes, and you know, the everyone lines up on the, on the, on the outline, they line up on the end line and everyone takes a step.
If you’ve ever been bullied or takes a step, if you’ve ever felt shame. And you know, you think the beautiful cheerleader is going to wind up still on the end line. They’re not going to take a step off. Surely the football player, the most popular kid in the school, he’s going to be on the end line. After these 30 questions are asked, if you’ve ever experienced, fill in the blank, take a step.
What do you see happen in these things in every.
Cortney Donelson: Right. Well, everyone’s taking steps, a lot of steps because they’re not the only one. Right. So there’s, they strip away the stigma when everyone’s moving forward for
Chris Gazdik: something and they are going to be moving forward. Yeah. Because we all struggle in yet.
Absolutely. So I don’t want to spend too much time on my brainstorm with, you know, what happened with the pandemic because that [00:45:00] the pandemic, we, I, I don’t know. I feel like there’s a lot that we know. Well, you’ve heard what you’ve heard as far as the concerns related to the pandemic and kids in schools.
And I mentioned emotions and mental health. It’s all true. More than you probably realize. I think that’s my whole pandemic section that I had planned.
Cortney Donelson: It sounds appropriate and true,
Chris Gazdik: Because I also want to get down and, and reserve most of the rest of our time to, you know, what can make this better. So a little section here, parental fears and helplessness.
Okay. Let’s not blame. The parents parents get blamed. Look at our episode on parents, shame and parent guilt parents don’t blame yourself. Understand that this is wicked wicked. Hardness came from somebody who’s working in the schools as well. This comment that the navigation is so wicked difficult.
That’s my word. Their word was much more [00:46:00] colorful. No, no. It was much more professional
Cortney Donelson: the opposite.
Chris Gazdik: It was really, really hard to know how to navigate this system. It is so confusing, so difficult to know the access points and also don’t blame yourself, but ask questions. You know, ask as many questions as you can.
If you’ve listened to the show, I wish Cortney, you would’ve heard this show maybe, you know, 10 years ago, so that you could have known even that there are some things in place, right? So, so ask a lot of questions, make a lot of statements, be involved, you know, but, but don’t blame yourself. I I’m really fearful that as kids have struggled and they’re struggling with their grades and learning that parents are just killing themselves, blaming themselves, tearing themselves so
Cortney Donelson: easy to ask, what did I do wrong?
Or what did I miss? Or what should I done? But,
Chris Gazdik: and I don’t care. I do that myself. I do that myself a lot and it’s, it’s tough moments, terrible moments. [00:47:00] So give yourself some grace and let’s also don’t blame the schools. Don’t blame them for the struggles systemically that are, that are there. Honestly, they’re up against it, trying to catch up with all of this stuff and they are overwhelmed.
Don’t blame the government. No, I’m not going to make that statement. That’s not a section you’ll notice by omission that isn’t a section and I am sorry if I upset people, but I’m not having that a section. I don’t, I’m not saying blame the government, but if they need help in how to kind of deal with these problems, I think for sure.
Shame sucks. Fear sucks. Helplessness sucks. These things are so tough and I’m afraid that. They will block us from getting to at some of the solutions [00:48:00] that are going to be helpful in going at what we need to do. So let’s jump to the segment. I think the twisties on the other side her she’s having a microphone issue real quick.
So let’s, let’s get to a good section on what what are some of the answers potentially? I’m not even going to hit you with the co-host co-host cold question of what to do.
Cortney Donelson: No, that’s okay. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Well, what’s the slide
Cortney Donelson: you already heard me say, I would love to, you know, abolish the whole old antiquated system and start over.
I don’t know what that looks like. I’m I’m no expert. I’m not, I don’t know what the government can or can’t do. I do know there are some schools that are getting it right, but those are very few and far between as far as moving away from the old system, maybe they’re [00:49:00] privatized, maybe they’re funded by billionaires, these schools, maybe we privatized education.
I have no idea, but but I think as a very simple low-hanging fruit, lots of states have requirements for, you know, what credits classes, education that people have to have before they graduate. They just added, you know, for some financial class, they have a public speaking class, they have their they’re required.
They’re, you know, two credits of a foreign language, et cetera, et cetera. Can we not add some type of mental health education for requirements or some type of I don’t know. And I don’t even know. What that would look like, but I do feel like all these supports that you say are, are offered that maybe most of us don’t know about are for children who have severe special needs or.
Not just the average student who has anxiety or stress or [00:50:00] depression.
Chris Gazdik: So
Cortney Donelson: those are those, all those kids are getting missed. They are.
Chris Gazdik: So they are absolutely getting missed in a, in a, in a big way. So, first of all, I want to tell you, I have a clinical mind. I don’t know. I think it’s somewhat decent. You know, I think about these things and I’m going to be honest with you, you know, what’s the solutions here.
I struggle with that question. I’m known to be honest with you, this has been a hold. The whole show has been a little bit of a struggle for me because these are, this is tough, man. So how. Much of a struggle. Do you think it is for principle Joe Smith out there? Who’s tasked with the mental health requirements that I read it, right.
You remember when I read and I said, pay attention to this. It’ll come back up. Well, the right now, you know, like the, the, the session law 2020 dash seven for North Carolina was approved. Hey, figure out your mental health plan. Right? This got to include health training program and, and suicide risk prevention protocols.
Now get, get [00:51:00] at it, Mr. What
Cortney Donelson: John Smith.
Chris Gazdik: That’s what we got. So this is, this is tough. It’s overwhelming, right? Like to, to figure out what to do. I would imagine since 2020 people have been shaking in her boots, trying to figure out, I gotta submit this to the state I died
Cortney Donelson: or it’s, or it’s so vague that it doesn’t really do anything.
The dinner
Chris Gazdik: table later that night. What do you think, baby? My wife. What do you think I should do here? Wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, you got an idea, but I’d love to hear it. I don’t know. Right? Because that’s, you know, but there are some solutions. I think there are some, some very specific things to begin thinking about.
I mentioned it a little bit ago. Stop the blame game. Let’s just stop the blames that people throw out there let’s come together on the issues. It does to a certain extent, right? From the get go, we have to talk about government and we have to talk about money. [00:52:00] Money money, money, money. The reality of the fact is these are financial realities that schools are strapped with.
We’ve got to commit as a society, to some of the factors that are going to affect money. And I’m not smart enough to know what the budgets are for people that are managing these budgets of trillions of dollars in the federal government, whatever, you know, but there’s going to be money barriers. Let’s expect that let’s anticipate that, but hold on, not so fast.
When we’re talking about mental health, we have insurance companies, we have Medicaid and blue cross and blue shield and Aetna and med costs. And all of these things, guess what they provide for in your healthcare benefits package their coverage coverage, right? It’s there. Why can’t we use that? And we are beginning to do that.
You know, these outside agencies, they bill for services to your insurance company. [00:53:00] That needs to happen instead of taking your kid out of school and coming to see me at Metro Atlanta psychotherapy associates, don’t get me wrong. I love your referrals. I work with you. I love doing what I do, but wouldn’t it be cool to have people that are embedded more embedding, more engaged, more active right there where the kid is?
You know, we, we we’re adults. We have to jerk ourselves around, out of work and get to therapy and do things. But we have flexibility the kid doesn’t, you know, what they need to be doing after school, probably from three to four o’clock when they’re coming to therapy, he’d go out, play. And they need to just unwind, let those high schoolers jump around, man.
They have got to get there. You know what my neighbor called it, I believe she said, particularly boys, she’s like, I think particularly teenage boys, they need to get all, get all their wiggles out. Right. That it was funny. She’s talking about her bearded some wiggles out, but they need to get, they [00:54:00] need to get moving.
They need to play, you know, so can they not take, you know, a long lunch in a therapy session at school embedding these needs to be where the kids are? I think
Cortney Donelson: especially, I just want to make the point, especially to ensure that those, that to ensure that kids at every socioeconomic level. The services they need.
Cause if, cause if well, and the other end you wait till after school and it’s a private session. Some kids are going home to an empty house with no dinner and parents who are working or are gone or, you know, they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. They’re not going to go to a private there.
The
Chris Gazdik: reason why I said that way is to catch the attention on what you’re saying. Yes. Poverty is huge when they’re doing a show on poverty tonight, but that gets a fabulous school. Lunch system is amazing that we have in place. We actually, I [00:55:00] think you heard a lot of talk about the, through the pandemic.
They continue to school lunch program. Even if the kids weren’t there, that’s because of those reasons. But the reason why I said what I said is because you know, in, in, in higher educational systems of, of. You get grants and you get education education schools that are in tough districts, poverty districts.
That’s where you get this current embedding. That’s just starting to happen. It’s not in wealthy districts. And I’m going to submit to you that those kids are struggling with anxiety also, for sure. Yeah. To the point of self harm, suicide and fights. Columbine had guns in the school, you know, that, I don’t think that was a poverty stricken school, you know, so all about helping the socioeconomic challenges for sure.
I mean, we need to understand that, but I want more universal. I really do.[00:56:00]
Change in attitude about teaching to the
Cortney Donelson: tests. Oh, that’s a big one for me. Don’t push my buttons, Chris,
Chris Gazdik: if I have it already, there’s something wrong with you. This episode, this is something that I hear all the time from teachers in therapy. When this comes up in their stress is being processed.
Cortney Donelson: Oh, it’s ridiculous.
It’s ridiculous.
Chris Gazdik: I’m sick of
Cortney Donelson: it. Yeah, I am too. I’m yep. I’m beyond sick of it.
Chris Gazdik: I have little kids in fricking fifth grade, sixth grade that are in tears, anxiety, migraines, not sleeping, not having mental health symptoms, gold bore throwing up
Cortney Donelson: because of a test. I know. And that’s yeah, because of a test and the teachers who are then assessed their own success is assessed based [00:57:00] on test scores of their students.
How unfair is that to
Chris Gazdik: teachers are panicked about
Cortney Donelson: being paid. I know, and schools are panicked about receiving funding based on their overall test scores. Can I
Chris Gazdik: employ this group of awesome people? I call my friends as a school administrator. If I don’t get the graduation rate up, what does that do when you have a need for a high graduation rate kids aren’t learning and they’re struggling.
We’ll pass them. It’s I could go on,
Cortney Donelson: but I don’t think it’s appropriate.
Chris Gazdik: We’ll hold it. All right. And I think that we all have those stories and that’s the point teaching to the test and standardization? I don’t know. Can we listen to the people that are in the schools and, and, and stop a lot of that.
Another, another thought that I have here is get back to the goal setting of getting to know the kid. I have this in all bold. You see on the notes. Yeah. [00:58:00] Our relationship with your teacher is super valuable. I wonder how many kids are going to be our age that are kids now that are going to say, I remember my teacher.
I remember my third grade teacher and they, I remember mine.
Cortney Donelson: Right? Here’s the thing. When you have 35 kids in a public classroom, how can you have a relationship with 35 kids in a 15 minute span?
Chris Gazdik: Right. It’s the systems are overwhelmed for sure. So I want to get back to the relationship. Yes. Can I make the bold statement that the relationship with the teacher is probably the most indicative of how well that kid will learn that’s off the cuff and in real time, I didn’t know.
I
Cortney Donelson: absolutely agree for my kids. That’s absolutely true. If, if my, if my children trust the teacher has their best interest in mind because the relationship has been [00:59:00] built and that trust has been built. They will perform for that teacher better than if they think the teacher doesn’t care
Chris Gazdik: about them. They will know what mitosis is and symbiosis and different clinical terms.
They will understand president Woodrow, his main drive in American. Because of this trust and the relationship I love the way he just put that, that triggers our ability to learn.
Cortney Donelson: In fact, that the start of every school year, I sit down with all of my kids’ teachers and I say, if you can build a relationship with them, they will do well.
That’s what it’s about. I tell them every year, every new teacher
Chris Gazdik: that’s, there you go. Yeah. Parent teacher conferences, you know, and also by the way, our relationship with the parents, you know, I love when I get to interact with the teachers, but unfortunately it’s usually because my kid’s struggling right.
More than one of those interactions. Yeah. You know, me too. Also increased attention in curriculum much like what I [01:00:00] said, what I saw briefly with my son’s first grade. Oh yeah. That’s what I meant. I I’m revisiting just the curriculum kind of statements and, and questions. Here’s what. For administrators and teachers directly.
And I think most teachers understand this, but it’s a struggle because what am I going to do when little Sally is throwing stuff across the classroom, I got to send them to redirect. Okay. Maybe that’ll help. We can do some things in redirect. Oh, they’ve done it a third time. They’re suspended, go home. You know what the kids are doing in my therapy office.
When we talk about school suspensions, they’re doing exactly what she’s doing right now.
Cortney Donelson: Yeah, I know. Right.
Chris Gazdik: I got it. I’m home. I’m chilling as we kids do, you know, just hanging out now, this was a, this was a successful event.
Cortney Donelson: In kindergarten, my son was sent to the office [01:01:00] for, I, it was something ridiculous, but he was sent there and he said it was the best part of his day because he sat there and talked with everyone who came into the office, parent teacher alike and just had conversations with them.
It was like, it was the best part of my day. Why would they lie? That was no punishment.
Chris Gazdik: He said it was a cute little, first grade,
Cortney Donelson: kindergarten, kindergarten, age
Chris Gazdik: five. My vision after talking to Casey and thinking about this with her experiences in Kintegra, her why and how can we not have these services in schools that can be financed by insurance?
Just as they are now outside of school, the fact is many kids in rich neighborhoods could benefit from this. Like I said, from a professional dedicated to be in the schools, we have the systems in place, the embedding. I just want to highlight that again, right. Instead of taking kids out of school to see me, like, I think I mentioned before and I made the [01:02:00] joke instead of taking all of my three and four o’clock appointments, you know there’s a lot of good to be had.
These professionals are great. Learning disabilities are, are disruptive. And you know, these children that are dealing with special needs, you know, are they have disruptions in classes and the emotions are a part of that. So I think the pandemic very well might trigger a lot more conversations like we have had today.
And I, and I really hope that that continues and I believe it will. I believe it absolutely.
Cortney Donelson: We’ve had a tipping point.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. They go a little further with that and we’ll wrap
Cortney Donelson: up well, just with the pandemic, like you said, awareness is there, but also because it ratcheted up everyone’s anxiety, depression, et cetera.
And there’s been more bouts of violence and self harm and things like that. I think everyone’s eyes are open. I think there’s a tipping point and people realize, okay, something needs to change [01:03:00]
Chris Gazdik: here, here. That is an awesome summary for the show. Right? Hope we’ve gotten your brains thinking a little bit about these issues with mental health in the schools.
Let’s keep working at it because I have a lot of hope that it can be augmented changed, improved, and worked with. So I love it. Thanks for hanging out with us.