By Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter
Dallas, TX – Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter: Lara, Juan Jose Ley, and their 12-year-old daughter Laisin sit smiling, often hugging each other, in a meeting room at a Youth and Family Center next to Cary Middle School in Dallas. The family, which came from Mexico three years ago, didn't always look so happy.
Dulce Torres, Manager, Youth and Family Center Clinic: Laisin used to constantly throw tantrums and was constantly arguing things to get her way.
Zeeble: Dulce Torres, who's bilingual, is the Manager for this Youth and Family Center Clinic, one of nine serving the 218 DISD schools.
Torres: She will bang her head against the wall. Laisin was misbehaving. Also, she was having attitude problems and talking back, things like that.
Zeeble: Laisin's school counselor noticed her behavior problems and declining grades, then suggested the family visit the girl's middle school's mental health clinic. Again, Dulce Torres:
Torres: Laisin was having difficulties because her mom and dad were having problems at home, and this was affecting Laisin. That's what they discovered once they started coming here and looking for help for her.
Zeeble: Each mental health clinic includes psychologists and clinicians. Every child is assigned a clinician who works with the child, his or her family, the teacher and the principal. They map a treatment of therapy that includes medication about twenty percent of the time. Laisin didn't need medicine, since her problems were related to troubles at home. In addition to family therapy, her parents attend couples counseling and Laisin goes to group counseling - all at the school clinic. Laisin's parents had separated, but are living together again, and Laisin says they've started paying more attention to her needs.
Laisin: They started listening to my opinion and then we combined them to see what was the problem and how we could figure it out; a solution that would work for them and me.
Zeeble: As a result of the treatment, Laisin's grades are improving. That's what happens to most DISD students receiving mental health services. Disciplinary referrals have dropped eighty-five percent for students getting mental health care under the program. Absenteeism dropped by half. Remarkably, patients keep their appointment nearly one hundred percent of the time - double the rate at the city's community mental health centers. Staff child psychiatrist Dr. Leonora Stevens thinks the compliance rate is so high because the clinics are in the schools and they aren't specifically branded for mental health.
Dr. Leonora Stevens, child psychiatrist: There's not a stigma, when you walk through this door, that you must have a mental problem. You might come in for immunizations. It's really opened that up to our families in the community, to be able to come here.
Zeeble: Jenni Jennings, Executive Director of the Youth and Family Centers, says even when parents are unfamiliar with mental health services, or fear a clinic visit means you're crazy, they'll do anything to help their children do better in school. It also helps that seventy percent of Jennings' staff is Hispanic or African American, and many are bilingual.
Jenni Jennings, Executive Director, Youth and Family Centers: There are many issues - adjusting to a new culture, a new school system - so families embrace and welcome someone who gives them help.
Zeeble: Everyone gives Jennings the credit for the program's success. Ten years ago, Jennings was working for the Dallas school district when a student she knew was murdered while dealing drugs. One of his friends then committed suicide.
Jennings: My heart was broken, and I said, 'Dear God, what can I do to help these children because I'm not good enough,' even though I believed I was the best. I believe we need a team of people to do this, not just one person. But a team - trained, smart and committed.
Zeeble: Jennings assembled the team and helped sell it to the district. DISD pays most of the $5 million the program costs each year. Parkland Hospital contributes $1.5 million. That means the mental health clinics are free, which is a relief to families - many of them immigrants - who can't afford insurance. That financial support also lets the Youth and Family Centers go into the classroom. Here in Dallas' Macon Elementary School, seventeen mostly Latino and African American boys enter a portable classroom for their weekly special session called Drama Teach. Jenni Jennings says it's group counseling for kids with problems ranging from fighting to cheating.
Jennings: We're looking at the left-behind kids. Reasons may be their inability to focus. They have a lot of energy, and we're turning them around. We're reenergizing them to become leaders in school because they're natural leaders.
Zeeble: These 5th graders know why they're here.
Student #1: 'Cause some of us are having problems in school. Dramateach came here to help us with problems.
Student #2: Dramateach says we're good leaders. If we do good, the rest of the class will be good.
Ben Anderson, Instructor, Dramateach: The class today is on peer pressure. Peer pressure!
Zeeble: This play therapy involves a game, and instructor Ben Anderson says $20 is the winner's prize. The children listen. They pair up and sit on each side of the class. The center is strewn with boxes. One child is blindfolded while his team mate, his positive peer, shouts directions so the boy can navigate across the room. Hit a box three times and you lose. Here's the kicker: every one else is a negative peer, shouting wrong directions. The blindfolded boy's partner cannot possibly be heard over the mayhem. No team wins. Then Anderson changes the rules: only the team member shouting correct directions will be heard. Now they're playing for lollipops. This time, every team wins. Ben Anderson says he's seen a big difference in these students over time.
Anderson: When you see the bulb come on, like in these kids - they did it - that might be the first time they've achieved something in months. You did it, now what else can you do? Once you turn that bulb on, it's a blessing in disguise.
Zeeble: Here's something else that may brighten the hopes those who want to reach more children needing mental health care: at a time when the No Child Left Behind Act is being criticized, two Texas politicians from opposing parties - Republican Pete Sessions and Democrat Eddie Bernice Johnson - plan to jointly introduce a bill that would fund similar school-based mental health programs in Los Angeles, Chicago, Albuquerque, and New Haven, Connecticut. For KERA 90.1, I'm Bill Zeeble.
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