Partnership provides more counselors for low-income students

Principal Sandra Jimenez said there is a “great need” for counseling services at St. Peter School in San Francisco, where over 60 percent of the student body comes from low-income families. (Photo by Christina Gray/Catholic San Francisco)
 
Aug. 19, 2019
Christina Gray
Catholic San Francisco
 
Five Catholic K-8 schools in San Francisco without the resources to hire counseling staff will have greater access to on-site mental health services in the 2019-20 school year.
 
Thanks to a partnership between local educators concerned about childhood mental health, DeMarillac Academy, School of the Epiphany, Mission Dolores Academy, St. James School and St. Peter School will be able to use public funds to fully or partially offset the cost of mental health services for students.
 
“Motivation and healthy children is half the battle in education,” said Jonathan Schild, associate superintendent in charge of student services for archdiocesan Catholic schools. “It’s important that our students’ minds not be hijacked by stress and anxiety.”
 
Schild was instrumental in forging a partnership between the Department of Catholic Schools, the San Francisco Unified School District and the University of San Francisco’s Center for Child and Family Development that will benefit more than 700 students in the five Catholic schools and one non-Catholic school in the 2019-20 academic year.
 
USF graduate and post-graduate student interns working toward professional counseling degrees and licensure will provide counseling at each school site, paid for with Title I funds.
 
The USF center has long served Catholic schools that have been able to pay for school-based counselors/trainees, Schild said. This is the first year in which federal funds will be used to offset the cost to schools that would otherwise not be able to pay for a counselor.
 
“It’s not dollars into the school but it can pay for services, counseling being one of them,” Schild said.
 
Sandra Jimenez, principal of St. Peter School in San Francisco’s Mission District, told Catholic San Francisco Aug. 13 that in the absence of a staff counselor, teachers and administrators “do their best” to help students and their families with social, emotional and behavioral issues.
 
“We have a high need for a counselor, but we don’t really have one,” she said.
 
A large percentage of the Mission District school’s students come from low-income families. Jimenez estimated that 60 percent or more of St. Peter students would meet the criteria for Title I, which provides federal financial aid for schools with a high level of students from low-income families.
 
Jimenez said the school had a USF student counselor on campus last year one day a week, but the demand was greater than what one person could manage. Now she will be able to hire a second counselor.
 
Jimenez said the impact of social media is the biggest source of anxiety and depression for students. The threat of raids and deportations in a school community with a large immigrant population has also spiked collective anxiety.
 
“There are fears a parent will be taken away,” she said.
 
Living in a poor or low-income household has been linked to poor health and increased risk for mental health problems in both children and adults that can persist across the lifespan, according to a January 2017 article in the journal Pediatrics.
 
Dr. Toni Nemia, director of the USF center, said that in some neighborhoods, “environmental trauma,” including poverty, gang violence, racism, crime and drugs, amplifies family traumas such as death, divorce and abuse.
 
She referenced a U.S. Centers for Disease Control study that showed that adverse childhood experiences can influence the health and lifespan of adults.
 
“To be in a state of chronic anxiety, fear or anger, it’s poisonous,” Nemia said.
 
The CDC found that incidence of depression and anxiety has increased in children, with 7.1 percent of children aged 3-17 diagnosed with anxiety and 3.2 percent with depression.
 
“Early diagnosis and appropriate services for children can make a difference in the lives of children with mental disorders,” the CDC said.
 
Schild said that school counselors tell him that student anxiety issues have sharply spiked in recent years.
 
There’s a multitude of reasons for it, he said, including academic pressures, social media influence, cyber-bullying and violence.
 
“We need to counter that and provide kids with good trained professionals who can help them navigate through it because some of these stressors are adult level stressors,” he said. “They just don’t have the coping skills at this age.”
 
USF President Jesuit Father Paul J. Fitzgerald applauded the new partnership, saying USF, the archdiocese and San Francisco Unified School District have a long history of working together, “with a special regard for the least served and the most vulnerable.”