Carly Kandel ensures Briscoe Elementary is a good place for her students.
Nearly all of the Fort Worth ISD school’s students come from low-income homes, and their basic needs aren’t always being met, said Kandel, a program manager for Communities In Schools of Greater Tarrant County.
Kandel does all she can to make students feel safe and as ready to learn as possible — food, warmth, clean clothes — whatever students need.
“We can’t get to that higher level of thinking until we address all the things that are going on holistically for our kids,” she said.
Editor’s note
This is the first of a three-part series examining how Fort Worth-area schools are caring for students’ mental health.
School districts in Fort Worth use Communities In Schools as part of their toolkits to care for students’ well-being. They also offer counselors, telemedicine options and programs tailored to meet the specific needs of students. Research supports Kandel: Students whose mental health needs are addressed tend to perform better in school.
Communities In Schools has found 90% of students it serves see improved grades as well as better behavior — and 96% of students are promoted to the next grade.
Texas is among the states with a higher prevalence of mental illness and lower rates of access to care for young people, according to the national nonprofit Mental Health America. The group ranked the state last in mental health access in 2022.
Half of school districts in Texas have no mental health services. The rest offer some access or telehealth only — few have adequate resources.
Student mental health concerns are of ‘utmost importance’
In October, the Fort Worth Report reached out to all 12 school districts in the Fort Worth area to ask how they handle their students’ mental health. Aledo, Burleson, Castleberry and Lake Worth ISDs did not respond by publication time.
Fort Worth ISD has had a system in place since 2002 to ensure all students’ mental health needs are addressed, said Cesar Padilla, the district’s communications coordinator.
The district uses a multi-tiered system of supports framework that integrates prevention and intervention support. It collaborates with Mental Health Connection and also follows the Safe and Supportive School Program, Padilla said.
Counselors at Northwest ISD reach out to parents and caregivers to inform concerns or provide services once they are aware that a student is in crisis, said Jamie Farber, the district’s director of guidance and counseling. Counselors sometimes hear from the students themselves or from friends, teachers or through social media posts.
“Student mental health concerns are of the utmost importance to not only keep our students
safe, but to also help them be successful with academic and other endeavors,” Farber said.
How districts approach mental health differently
Crowley ISD focuses on open conversations intended to educate teachers and students on what mental health is and how they can find support, said Trina Lane, the district’s executive director of counseling services.
“We allow student-led conversations to take place and also guide and support educators with resources for themselves or others,” Lane said.
A group of 60 high school students across Northwest ISD will become wellness ambassadors this year, Farber said. They will attend a wellness summit and assist counselors in areas like suicide, bullying and substance use.
“Students are the eyes and ears to the well-being of their peers. More often than not, students
may go to their peers first,” she said. “Peers must know when and how to get trusted adults involved.”
How school districts offer telehealth
Established in 2019 after the Santa Fe High School shooting, the Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine is now available for 723 school districts and over 3.6 million students statewide.
The program was a part of the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium, which received $337 million in state funding — $173 million of which goes to telemedicine efforts.
Among districts in the Fort Worth area, Eagle-Mountain Saginaw, Keller and Northwest ISDs are partnering with the telehealth service to meet students’ mental health needs.
‘We don’t have enough’
Leti Gudino, a Communities In Schools mental health counselor in Everman ISD, works with elementary school children. She says that students’ mental health needs are not always obvious.
Gudino previously worked with two students who had selective mutism. At home, they would talk. At school, they were silent.
Gudino feared that without a counselor like her intervening, the students would silently move through school.
“They have good grades because they’re completing the work, but they have no social skills, no friends, no socializing — nothing like that,” Gudino said. “It was very lonely for them.”
She taught the students coping skills to help them overcome their fear and anxiety in social settings. What they needed, she said, was an adult who could help them be comfortable.
Now both students speak at school and have friends.
“That’s really rewarding because that means they’re implementing everything that they’re learning. They’re doing good in the classroom,” Gudino said.
Gudino and Kandel, the social worker at Fort Worth ISD’s Briscoe Elementary, see their work as so important for students. Yet, they agree Texas can do a better job of helping provide adequate mental health resources to students.
“I feel like we don’t have enough mental health resources in school settings,” Gudino said.
Already, they are worried about whether their services will continue past 2024. Many districts are using federal pandemic relief dollars to fund mental health resources for students.
The funding expires in fall 2024.
Fort Worth Report is part of the Mental Health Parity Collaborative, a group of newsrooms that are covering stories on mental health care access and inequities in the U.S. The partners on this project include The Carter Center, The Center for Public Integrity, and newsrooms in select states across the country.
Jacob Sanchez is an enterprise journalist for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or via Twitter.
Dang Le is a reporting fellow for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at dang.le@fortworthreport.org or via Twitter.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
