February 13, 2025 • 36 mins
Can better mental health support in schools transform student success? Join us as we explore this critical question with Kevin DaHill-Fuchel, Executive Director of Counseling in Schools (CIS). With him, we uncover the profound impact of integrating mental health professionals into school environments, a strategy that has notably boosted attendance and graduation rates in New York City.Â
Our conversation takes a deep dive into the challenges faced by schools, especially in accommodating the influx of asylum-seeking children in 2023. We discuss how CIS adapts its strategies to meet the unique cultural needs of diverse school communities, emphasizing the necessity of addressing basic needs and engaging families. Through effective communication and recruitment, CIS positions school counselors and mentors as credible messengers who build trust and respond to students' specific situations, including high rates of homelessness. This approach ensures that students receive the support they need to thrive amidst challenging circumstances.
In today's technology-driven landscape, connecting with students extends beyond academics. We discuss the intersection of mental health and education, underscoring the importance of fostering emotional and social development alongside academic progress. We highlight strategies that empower schools to support students holistically. This episode not only shines a light on the critical role of mental health in education but also inspires listeners to champion these initiatives in their own communities, creating an educational environment where every student can succeed.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (00:00):
Today we're discussing the impact of
school-based mental healthcounseling, a topic that affects
millions of students acrossAmerica.
Welcome to the brighter side ofeducation, research, innovation
(00:20):
and resources, innovation andresources.
I'm your host, dr Lisa Hassler,here to enlighten and brighten
the classrooms in Americathrough focused conversation on
important topics in education.
In each episode, I discussproblems we as teachers and
parents are facing and whatpeople are doing in their
communities to fix it.
What are the variables and howcan we duplicate it to maximize
(00:40):
student outcomes?
The American School CounselorAssociation has established a
recommended student-to-counselorratio of 250 to 1 to ensure
effective support for students.
However, according to theirmost recent data, the national
average far exceeds thisrecommendation.
The importance of these ratioshas been powerfully demonstrated
in a comprehensive multi-statestudy published in the
(01:02):
Professional School CounselingJournal.
This research, led by Dr PegDonahue, found that schools with
more favorablecounselor-to-student ratios
showed higher SAT scores,increased post-secondary
enrollment and lower rates ofchronic absenteeism.
Particularly telling was theirfinding that in states with
higher counselor-to-studentratios, school experienced more
(01:23):
suspensions and worse academicoutcomes across subject areas of
English, math and science.
Building on these findings, theNational Association of School
Psychologists emphasizes thatcomprehensive school-based
mental health services areessential for creating safe and
supportive learning environments.
Their research demonstratesthat when students have access
(01:43):
to qualified mental healthprofessionals in schools, we see
improvements across multipleareas academic performance,
school attendance and overallstudent well-being.
Now, despite this clear evidenceof impact, there's still
significant challenges inproviding equitable access to
these vital services.
The US Department of Education'scivil rights data collection
has highlighted significantdisparities in access to school
(02:06):
counselors, particularlyaffecting schools in urban areas
and those serving predominantlyminority populations.
This research underscores thevital importance of
organizations working to ensureevery student has access to
quality mental health support inschools quality mental health
support in schools and todaywe're fortunate to have with us
(02:26):
someone who's been leading thischarge in America's largest
school district for nearly fourdecades.
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel is apioneering force in school-based
mental health counseling.
As Executive Director ofCounseling in Schools, cis, a
nonprofit that embeds mentalhealth counselors throughout New
York City's school system.
Under his leadership, cis hasgrown to place over 200 mental
(02:47):
health professionals in morethan 70 schools and community
centers, reaching over 10,000individuals.
The impact of this work speaksfor itself, with CIS schools
seeing a remarkable 20-dayincrease in student attendance
and achieving a 95% on-timegraduation rate for eligible
seniors.
Kevin's insights from workingin America's largest and most
diverse school district offer aunique window into both the
(03:11):
challenges and possibilities inschool-based mental health
support.
Welcome, kevin, it's an honorto have you with us today.
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (03:18):
It's a pleasure to be with you, Lisa.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (03:20):
Could you start by explaining what CIS is
and how it supports students inNew York City schools?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (03:27):
Sure Well, cis, or Counseling in Schools,
is a nonprofit organization inNew York City that provides
social-emotional supports tostudents in schools.
Right now our main focus is asit has been since 1986, on
public schools, and our servicesintegrate largely into
communities where there is a bitof a gap in access or
(03:50):
availability of social emotionalsupport services as a broad
category, but as a deepercategory really, mental health
perspective and mental healthservice providers.
So we connect with schoolcommunities, or school
communities connect with usthrough various means of
contracting.
Often they're governmentsources of contract or programs
(04:12):
our mission is aligned with orfoundations that support the
work.
And then we meet with thatschool community.
We understand what it is thatthey see their needs as being
and what types of elements aregoing to be the right ones to
kind of address what they'reconcerned about in their
community.
And then we hire people whobecome full-time members of that
(04:35):
team in the school, so theywork for counseling in schools
but they really embed themselvesin the school on an everyday
basis and when we're doing ourjob really really well,
counseling in schools staffappear to be another staff in
the building doing work alongwith all the other staff in the
building.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (04:53):
That's amazing .
So now, new York City has alongstanding history of being
referred to as America's meltingpot, and you've had a lot of
recent influxes with thousandsof asylum seekers, so that
student population remainsincredibly diverse.
How does CIS adapt itsapproaches to meet the varying
cultural perspectives and thoseneeds?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (05:13):
Sure, well, counseling in schools, we
really take a community-basedapproach.
So you'll hear me inreferencing and answer to your
question.
Sometimes I'll refer to aschool community reaches out to
us that takes the place of aprincipal, or'll refer to a
school community reaches out tous that takes the place of a
principal or an individual in aschool building.
But we think about it from theperspective of the community in
which that school sits and whoare the students and the faculty
(05:36):
who make up the school buildingas a community of people.
So when we take that approach,we're aligning our needs
assessment and then we'realigning our program design to
what's happening in thatcommunity.
So, with the large influx ofasylum seeking children that
came into the city and to 2023,there were 60,000 students that
(05:56):
entered the New York City publicschool system who had not been
in the country months before,let alone in a school system
within the country.
So there was an awful lot ofwork to do, which started in
(06:19):
most places with meeting verybasic needs and working on being
a partner in the community'sresponse around creating basic
need supply services whether itbe, you know, coats and shoes
and access to food and reallybasic kinds of services.
And then one of the things thatwe did within those communities
that we're working in, we wentinto and we're continuing to do
(06:42):
this going into the temporaryhousing facilities that the city
provided for them so that wewere working directly with the
families, not just the students,so that they would be oriented
towards what it is that theirchildren would be experiencing
in the schools and they wouldlearn how to work with that.
Yet the step before that thatwe needed to take with that
particular population was reallymake sure that we had a broader
(07:06):
range of staff who were reallyfamiliar with that immigration
experience from South Americancountries, which is largely what
that influx included.
So we very specifically createdrecruitment campaigns for staff
in other languages to recruitpeople into these efforts with
(07:26):
us, and that was really animportant step for us to really
be able to communicateeffectively.
One of the concepts that I putforward in a lot of our work is
that you need people who, withinthe communities we're working
in, are seen as crediblemessengers, and that can be
anyone from.
You know who's delivering any,delivering any kind of
socio-educational piece or ifyou're doing real sit-down
(07:48):
mental health types ofinterventions.
But you need to be credible tothe person who you're addressing
, and people can bridge thatcredibility gap pretty quickly
if they can kind of relate alittle bit more to the
experience.
So we use the melting pot ofthe city to our advantage.
I would put it that way becauseit's not like there weren't a
community of people here.
It just became a crisis becauseof those numbers and it
(08:11):
probably was known that the waythat people came here was not of
their own volition necessarily.
They voluntarily came into thecountry but they weren't
necessarily thinking they werecoming to New York City coming
to New York City.
So there was really a lot to dothere and we were able to get
people in the city toparticipate with us who had the
right qualifications to workaround the mental health needs
(08:31):
of the students and families.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (08:33):
You also have a lot of different citywide
challenges other than that like9-11.
And you also are facing at themoment one of the highest levels
of homelessness since the GreatDepression of the 1930s.
That affects about one in everyeight students in your city
schools.
How have you seen the role ofschool counselors evolve to meet
those kinds of children'schanging needs?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (08:54):
Yeah, I mean I think you know, go back
to what I said a few minutes ago.
I mean I think it really isstarting with basic needs, right
?
We kind of say, like it'sMaslow over Bloom, you have to
really start there.
Not that that wasn't always thecase, but you could kind of
assume that maybe a few of thestudents that you were working
with would need some basic needs, but most of the time you would
be going up that ladder to tryto get into some of the other
(09:16):
developmental stages.
But before you can really dothat now, because of the numbers
that you mentioned and 108 is astaggering number in our city,
which has close to a millionstudents in the system, and
that's just the public educationsystem.
That leaves out the charterschools and the private schools
and the religious-based schoolsand so all of those students who
(09:38):
are going through that, youreally come into their
educational experience in a verydifferent sort of orientation
towards the goals that they mayhave or the opportunities that
we think that we're providingthem with.
You know, what we're seeing isthat children and families don't
see much past next week or amonth from now, whereas in the
(10:00):
education system there's do whatyou need to do today, but the
vision is a longer goal.
When you get that degree, whenyou get that diploma, when you
get past that, then theopportunities open up.
It's very, very difficult forstudents and families who are in
a day-to-day life situation,for their basic need of housing,
to adopt that or really feelconnected to that mission, to
(10:21):
that mission.
So you have to stay with peopleon really the fundamental food,
shelter, clothing, things thatthey need.
Seeing goals there be met thenallow them to sort of be a
little bit more open towardsworking through some of the
other things.
So one of the other ways thatwe address this is that part of
counseling in schools work isalso working with the staff in
(10:42):
schools.
So we call our staff counselorsand they are embedded in the
building.
We have also a team of peoplewho do training for all of the
staff in the school.
So we think that it's really,really important that everybody
takes a particular lens towardsunderstanding who the students
are in their school and how tointerpret what the responses the
(11:05):
children are giving to youalong the way, and so you know
homework that may not be done inthe same way, or the conditions
that someone shows up in witheither the material that you
gave them the night before orthe clothing that they're
wearing.
You know, how do you understandwhat that is and how do you
respond to it are really thingsthat are nuanced in a lot of
(11:25):
ways, and teachers who aresteeped in their content areas
aren't necessarily as educatedyet in terms of how to attune to
those relationships that needto be built on a little bit of a
different manner, and so wereally work on that as part of
what we're doing in schools tomake sure that we're not the
sole responsible for the socialemotional support of students.
(11:48):
One of the things I like to sayis that every single person
resides within a school buildingis going to affect every other
person's emotional well-beingand their view on how they
socialize, and so it's importantin the adult community in the
school building that there'salignment and understanding.
No matter what your role is, nomatter what your degree is,
you're having an impact on theemotional and social experience
(12:12):
of everyone else around you.
So understanding that andappreciating that goes a long
way towards alleviating sort ofthe sole responsibility for a
child's well-being on one or twopeople because that's what
their title is but gives everychild a chance to have that net
around them that they can getgrowth opportunities, whether
it's in the lunchroom or in themath class or in my counseling
(12:35):
office.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (12:36):
What kind of mental health issues are you
seeing amongst the students inyour schools today?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (12:42):
I think this is similar across the
country.
There are really heighteneddegrees of anxiety.
I think coming out of COVID thesocial anxiety increased quite
a bit.
I think the face-to-faceintegration, people
understanding how to workthrough the smallest of
challenges or what I.
Well, now I'm judging that, butI'm saying smallest of
(13:04):
challenges because it would haveseemed that way if I would
think about other yearspre-COVID that were easily sort
of negotiated.
Particularly the youngerchildren are having a harder
time working that out.
So there's needs there andthere's a kind of anxiety that
you see throughout that level.
We're definitely seeing higherrates of suicide, ideation of
(13:26):
young people feeling hopelessand disoriented towards life in
general, what they're doing,where they're going.
Another issue that's been comingup quite a bit lately here in
New York City there was thelegalization of marijuana and I
think the access to some of theways in which it's not
necessarily smoking, but theaccess to that availability,
(13:49):
whether it's things that youngpeople eat or gummies or what
have you, is really not a goodthing.
It's just too easily accessible.
I know it's not intended to bethat way.
I mean I suspect afterprohibition there was maybe
something similar going on, butit's something of great concern
to us, maybe something similargoing on, but it's something of
great concern to us.
I think the other thing I wouldadd to that that does add to
(14:09):
the social anxiety andeverything else and being
grappled with on a policy levelhere in the city is the impact
of social media and thereforethe transmission of social media
through cell phones.
You know, that idea thatstudents are kind of always on
somewhere, that the news of theworld and the news of their
friends is a constant streaminto their consciousness leads
(14:33):
to some of that anxiety but alsocontributes to a kind of
distractibility and a challengewith focus and also at times,
obviously, depending on whatthat content is, can lead
towards various forms of mentalchallenges depression, anxiety,
frustration, anger, differenttypes of feelings as well as
different types of stressors.
That again from the outsideperson.
(14:54):
When you're not in that spacewith them, it becomes harder to
understand what someone isresponding to or where they're
coming from.
I'm a clinical social workermyself and worked in the schools
for quite a while, and one ofthe tenets that you always do is
that you want to meet yourclient where they are.
You want to find out andunderstand how to connect with
them on where they're at and theaccess to other types of
(15:15):
information and experiences thatstudents have on the internet
make that really challenging tosort of break through and feel
like you're really connectingwith someone, that they've
really been able to communicateto you all of what it is that's
kind of on their mind or intheir experience, and that's
something that is being grappledwith all over, but certainly in
New York.
(15:35):
There's a lot of discussionright now on whether or not you
can remove cell phones fromschools, whether you can't, and
all of the challenges aroundthat.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (15:44):
Especially when schools want the technology
integration and if they don'thave the funding to be able to
support maybe a one-to-onedevice and the students have the
phones, that's a way to maybemeet that standard.
But when you're thinking aboutthe news of the world I had
never considered that weighingon them.
If you're seeing it streamingall the time as soon as you open
(16:05):
up your phone looking at thenegative things that are going
on in the world, it's just likeanother thing added on to the
hopelessness feeling maybe ofwow, I feel bad now because of
my situation, but I'm lookingout what is there to look out
towards, because this doesn'tlook good to me.
I had never considered thatbefore, so it's a great
perspective.
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (16:24):
Yeah, definitely, and so much of that
information comes through inimagery, which is so much more
even impactful and hard to knowalways how someone's going to
interpret the images that theysee.
But the images also do tend to,you know, sort of stick.
I'm just thinking about ittoday with all of the images
that I was seeing of the firesin Los Angeles that are just
(16:45):
devastating to look at andpeople are talking about their
houses burning down.
Well, I know there's a lot ofkids sitting in shelters who are
there because of house fires.
Houses are burning and I don'thave a home.
Where's someone going to go withthat?
And why should they have to tryto figure that out at age seven
or eight?
Even if you just heard, oh,there are fires in Los Angeles,
that might be bad.
(17:06):
Even if you just heard, oh,there are fires in Los Angeles,
that might be bad.
But those images are everywherebecause they're so graphic,
they communicate the experiencethat's going on there so well
from a media perspective.
They're not going to edit them.
They're going to find theclearest ones to portray, for us
to sort of feel that concern,but we don't really have a way
(17:26):
to filter our children fromthose same experiences.
There isn't anything that'scome along to do that.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (17:34):
Right, that's good enough to filter it towards
children's level of mentalmaturity and, with all of those
battles that children are facing, that it adds to a resistance
to want to go to school.
They're having a hard timewanting to attend.
Yet your data is showing thatthere is actually remarkable
improvements in attendance andgraduation rates with the
(17:56):
students that CIS is serving.
So what kind of strategies haveyou seen that have proven to be
effective in addressing chronicabsenteeism?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (18:06):
Yeah, I mean I think there is, by and
large, that we have been able tomove the needle for a lot of
the students I wish I could sayall of our students, but a lot
of our students and I think it'sa couple of things.
One of our programs that seemsto have really been moving us
forward called Success Mentoring, which is essentially pairing a
group of students with someonewho is not that necessarily far
(18:29):
away in age from them.
So some of the high schoolstudents who have graduated and
maybe gone to community collegesor done some other things and
stayed in the area, we'veemployed them on a part-time
basis to come back into theschool or in the community that
they grew up in and form amentoring type of relationship.
I mean, I use mentoring alittle bit loosely because that
can mean a lot of things to alot of people, but it becomes a
(18:50):
contact person, someone you canjust have an easy conversation
with, but someone who's going tofollow you on a day-to-day
basis.
So if you're not in schoolthey're going to be the one
making the phone call.
Before we set that relationshipup, we send a card home to the
parent with an image of theperson who's going to be their
mentor.
We invite them to come in andmeet them.
(19:11):
So it's involving the family,it's bringing people from the
community to be part of thatcredible messenger piece I was
speaking about before.
That really seems to becritical.
It really is strengtheningcommunity ties within the school
itself for the students who arethere, so that they know that
they are heard and they're alittle bit more willing to go
through the struggles of notknowing, which is what learning
(19:32):
is all about.
And then in the places wheremost successful the schools are
really sophisticated at usingdata so that's almost an
algorithm approach to whensomeone hits a certain number of
days absence, there's sort of atier one, tier two, tier three,
tier four approach along theline, so that we're not just
throwing everybody in with thesame set of services, but we're
(19:53):
using those peer mentorsstrategically, that the school
has staff that they usestrategically, that we're
maximizing relationships thatexist.
It might be our peer mentor,but it might also be the school
safety officer, or it might bethe math teacher, someone who is
the right person to sort ofpush the button when you're just
at tier one and if it gets uphigher it might be an outside
referral.
(20:13):
There are situations where youfind out there's a domestic
violence situation going on,there's someone caring for a
really sick adult in their worldthat they weren't talking about
, or they have an illness thatisn't really being treated, and
so when you get some of thatinformation through these
relationships that feel lessthreatening, then that sense
that they've done somethingwrong and someone is coming, so
it's already in this punitivekind of approach.
(20:35):
We're going to get them off thestreet and back into school.
That paradigm is still how mostpeople think of absenteeism,
but it's the opposite of thatReally.
It's how do we nurture arelationship, create engagement
and have the school become aplace that people know they go
to to find that kind of supportand relief, as well as that
education.
In the places we're successfuland have the most impact, we've
(20:58):
been able to expand the range ofhow students experience their
school and the families as well.
There's a lot that goes on thatwe do.
We survey the parents reallyfrequently to find out.
You know, what is it that youneed from the community?
What are you looking for?
What do you have to offer tothe community so that we're not
just, you know, seeing people asneedy, but we're seeing people
(21:19):
as capable.
When you start to do that, thefeeling of the whole place
changes.
And so then students who aren'tthere, when people reaches out
and says, hey, you weren't here,we missed you, like they
believe it.
Like, oh, yeah, they did miss me.
Like, oh, my mom does thisthing, or my dad does this thing
with the school, Like, yeah,that's a place I need to be,
we're a part of something.
And in our massive city you caneasily just be student in row
(21:41):
three, seat four on the left.
So if you weren't there, it'sone less paper to grade, you
know.
But if you change that dynamicsignificantly, you really do get
better results.
And then students start toachieve, and so there's a high
rate of students graduating.
It's not always a four-yeargraduation rate, because there
are things that are in the wayfor that, but there is a
graduation rate that increases.
So that's a really criticalstep for whatever else is going
(22:03):
to happen.
There's so much data about thedifference between a high school
graduate and a non-high schoolgraduate and then you go to
college and not, but just thedata really supports that
getting across that line is amuch better indicator for life
outcomes is a much betterindicator for life outcomes.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (22:22):
Yeah, you do a lot of crisis response as well
as your day-to-day work, so Ican see how it really relates to
a lot of different challengesthat you are facing in the
schools.
What kind of crises docounselors typically handle in
their day-to-day work?
Like, what's that range looklike?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (22:36):
Yeah, I mean most times there's what we
would refer to as maybe small Ccrises, involving individual
students and things that are intheir world our counselors are
dealing with more regularly on aday-to-day and that might mean
that we spend a little bit moretime with that student,
depending on what they're goingthrough or what their needs are,
or that we're doing a littlebit more almost case management,
(22:56):
if there are again breaking itdown to the basic needs that
they're missing or advocacy thatwe might need to do.
And then there are what wouldbe sort of the capital letter
crises which are going to affectlarger groups of people.
I mean we've unfortunately hadour share of schools where
someone has been killed in theschool community, one last year
which was really horrific, whereone member of the school
(23:18):
community perpetrated violenceon another member and that
person ended up passing away.
So the whole school had tograpple with both the loss of
this one person, but then alsothe culpability of the
perpetrator, who was also seenas someone that had standing in
the community, so reallycomplicated.
We do have a protocol, one thathad been developed post 9-11,
(23:40):
for school-wide, school-basedcrisis response.
We pulled from materials from alot of different places, so we
didn't invent anything on ourown have really important
factors to create and considerin terms of how you message and
how you get the information out,what safe rooms look like and
(24:01):
what communication patterns looklike, and whether you do or
don't do some kind of memorialpiece within the school or how
you handle the conflict Withinthat regard, borrowing a lot
from restorative practices, ofhow you bring everyone's voices
together to have a piece of howyou move from harm and conflict
to resolution.
So when those things occur, wehave about 200 staff throughout
(24:23):
the city three clinicalsupervisors, about 17 program
managers.
We put together a team to goout to the school because often
our staff who are in the schoolare probably as affected.
They may be really important ifthey can handle being a part of
it.
But, like in the case that Iwas referring to.
That person was the counselorto one of the people who was
involved in the situation.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (24:44):
So their experience was tied to it.
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (24:47):
You can't ignore that we put a lot into
our own staff in terms of thesupport that those people need
to be able to stay fresh andcontinue.
So vicarious trauma issomething we think a lot about.
We ask our counselors to bevery conscious of, but also that
we very intentionally createlearning experiences as well as
regular supervisory.
(25:08):
And when we say supervision,it's really kind of like medical
supervision, right, finding outhow you're doing and what are
the situations that you'reinvolved in and where do you
need additional support or ideasor context to be able to work
through those things.
So that's an important elementand that shows up a lot when
there is these sort of largecrises in schools that glaring
(25:31):
element of when we need to makesure we're leaning into that
counselor and their needs aswell as the needs of the whole
community.
But we do do that on aneveryday basis as well.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (25:40):
There's a fantastic wraparound services
that you're providing.
It seems like you've thought ofjust about everything to
support all of the people withinthat school building, which is
absolutely amazing.
What do schools and communitiesdo if they lack mental health
services within their facilities?
What kind of pathways orsupport systems can they reach
out to to help their studentsthat are in crisis?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (26:04):
The city has a number of places that
schools can reach out to.
I think that the challenge isbreaking the access gap that
services like ours do.
But you know, there issomething called the Office of
School Health here, which isreally a bridge between the
Department of Health and MentalHygiene and the Department of
Education, and they doeverything from sort of the
nurses, which you might think,but they also have this whole
(26:25):
group of social workers andpsychologists and people that
they can, on a crisis basis,allocate to a school.
So it is, as a system, prepared, if you would, for these kinds
of things, and eitherfortunately or unfortunately,
they happen all too frequently.
I think it's the day-to-daypiece that I would be the most
concerned about within schoolsthat appear to be functioning
(26:48):
very well.
Like there's a school that wework with in the city, it's one
of the schools that usuallystands out as one of the higher
functioning schools, withstudents who are going on to
achieve, and they were smartenough about three years ago or
just after COVID, to recognizethat there was more going on
there than they were addressing.
So they were able to actuallyraise funds internally to bring
(27:09):
our services in, and it'scritical there it's really
really critical for students whoare in high pressure, high
situations, that you might lookfrom the outside and you walk
into that school building andyou think this is paradise, like
I want my child to go here.
And it's anywhere from there toa school and a community that
you would walk through wheresome of the needs would be more
(27:29):
you know, glaring and staringyou in the face.
One of the ways in which COVIDchanged the mental health
experience was that it was acrisis that was experienced
across the board.
When I was a counselor inschool, there was kind of what I
would refer to as a trauma gap,like the difference between my
experience of personal traumaand the students' experience of
personal trauma was different.
(27:50):
I had more to offer, more togive, not that I had none, but
there was a gap there in termsof being able to feel like, okay
, I can hold this, I've got roomand we can work together, and
then you're going to find yourstrength and you're going to
work through this and then we'regoing to kind of be okay
together.
And when it hit everybody, I wasas scared as anybody else.
(28:11):
I didn't leave my apartment forfour months, like I only went
up on my roof of my apartmentbuilding to get air once in a
while, like washing groceries,like all that stuff that we all
did was real and it stayed.
And we had a close cousin inhis 40s who died from the
disease, and people who in thecommunities had parents and
grandparents and siblings weredying, and the freezer trucks in
(28:32):
front of the hospitals werereal.
I mean, this all happened andwe all experienced it at the
same time, some ways to the samedegrees, and I think that
shaking of that and thatleveling of that gap did a
couple of things.
It created some empathy.
At the same time, it took awaysome of the stability for
(28:53):
children, because the adultsbecome less stable, because
we're now more anxious and Ithink that translates into
students being more anxious.
We're less certain about what'shappening.
Students are less clear aboutwhere they're heading in their
own future.
We're more divided within whatwe can discuss, what kind of
conflicts we can resolve, who'sreally with me, who's not.
(29:16):
We're seeing that in children,right.
So I think there's such animportant element to moving
forward right now that theadults in schools, but the
adults everywhere, really lookat our well-being, what we need
to do for healing, not kind oflooking at children as the
problem or the group that needshelp.
But we need help together sothat children can get back to
(29:40):
looking at us as stable,confident, clear,
forward-thinking, understandinghow to socialize, how to be
happy, how to do all thosethings.
When we get there, I thinkchildren are going to look at
that again and you'll start tosee some of that suicidal
ideation go down.
You'll start to see some of theanxiety drop.
It's just being osmosis-wise,sort of passed through and I get
(30:04):
really concerned when we don'tfocus on that.
We focus a lot on we got tohelp the kids and we do, but I
think we have to do that inlarge part by also acknowledging
and recognizing and helpingourselves.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (30:16):
This is a wonderful piece of advice.
You've been working with CISfor over 40 years and have a lot
of insight and perspective asto the needs of the communities,
the students, the staff, thefamilies in those areas.
What message would you want toshare with our audience today?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (30:56):
You know what I just said.
I would often hear that mentalhealth or social emotional
learning is important because itserves the educational progress
of a child, and I would justwant to tweak that.
I really do think that we willdo better in education systems
if we make mental well-being,mental health progress on par
(31:20):
with how we look at academicprogress, so that we maybe even
develop report cards ormechanisms of measurement of how
well is someone doingemotionally?
What kinds of skills havepeople been able to develop
socially?
You see that in kindergartenstuff and then it drops away and
I think we need to keep it.
There are many people who arebrilliant and their actions
(31:48):
socially are a little bit lessthan what you want to see.
So those are outliers to adegree, but they also kind of
help prove the point.
I hope that we really need tovalue these things equally and
see schools as the opportunityfor building those human
capacities, for a range ofemotional experience, for
emotional flexibility, forsocial skill development, to be
able to socialize effectivelywith anybody, whether you agree
(32:09):
or disagree, and how you holdpeople in your life and how you
maintain those relationships andbuild and grow and network, and
all of that at the same timethat you're learning about how
the world works and how todevelop new ideas and think
properly about how to contributeto the world as you grow up.
So I think those are things thatI would hope people would take
with them into their schoolboard meetings, into their other
(32:29):
conversations.
So there isn't like, okay, wehired a counselor, so we're
taking care of that.
You've hired a counselor,that's good, but is the whole
building, is the whole school?
Is everybody on board with howwe're developing this and are we
measuring it?
Are we really seeing that we'redoing okay with that?
I really am passionate aboutthis.
I think it really needs to be,just, you know, reorganized in
(32:49):
terms of how we think abouteducation.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (32:51):
I hope that we can all learn from your
wonderful modeling and examplesand apply them to our own school
districts.
So thank you so much for whatyou're doing with students and
communities in New York.
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (33:02):
Well, thank you, lisa, and thank you for
this platform and opportunity toyou know, bring this dialogue
and the others that you'vebrought into, you know, into the
public square, so to speak, forpeople to think about and
hopefully continue to sort ofmove forward in those
discussions and dialogues,because there's no one answers
to any of this, but the more wetalk about it and the more
people share, I think, thecloser we get towards the kinds
(33:25):
of experiences that we want tohave ourselves, as well as what
we want for our children.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (33:30):
How can someone reach CIS?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (33:33):
Great way is through our website,
counselinginschoolsorg.
There's a little link in therethat says let's get started.
There are a number of resourceson our website that are free to
download and able to be usedboth for parents and teachers in
classrooms, and you knowthere's a contact form on there
as well, and so we love to, youknow, hear from people and
understand what it is that wecan do to support or, you know,
(33:55):
always looking for partners inthe work.
I mean, I think that'ssomething I would add to Lisa to
what it is that's important forus within our work within
communities, is that we do bringand connect with a lot of other
nonprofits and for-profits andreligious groups.
Like all of that's reallyimportant to not do this work
isolated and in an alone fashion, and we don't do that.
(34:16):
So if there are those kinds ofinquiries out there, people that
are looking to partner or wantto be a part of what it is that
we're doing here, I think we canbe a part of it.
What it is you're doingsomewhere else, we're happy to
entertain this.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (34:28):
Absolutely, thank you.
If you're interested inlearning more about school-based
mental health counseling orsupporting initiatives like CIS,
visit counselinginschoolsorg.
By investing in student mentalhealth, we invest in their
future.
If you have a story aboutwhat's working in your schools
that you'd like to share, youcan email me at lisa at
(34:54):
drlisahasslercom, or visit mywebsite at wwwdrlisahasslercom
and send me a message.
If you like this podcast,subscribe and tell a friend.
The more people that know, thebigger impact it will have.
And if you find value to thecontent in this podcast,
consider becoming a supporter byclicking on the supporter link
in the show notes.
It is the mission of thispodcast to shine light on the
good in education so that itspreads, affecting positive
change.
So let's keep working togetherto find solutions that focus on
(35:17):
our children's success.
Today we're discussing the impact of
school-based mental healthcounseling, a topic that affects
millions of students acrossAmerica.
Welcome to the brighter side ofeducation, research, innovation
(00:20):
and resources, innovation andresources.
I'm your host, dr Lisa Hassler,here to enlighten and brighten
the classrooms in Americathrough focused conversation on
important topics in education.
In each episode, I discussproblems we as teachers and
parents are facing and whatpeople are doing in their
communities to fix it.
What are the variables and howcan we duplicate it to maximize
(00:40):
student outcomes?
The American School CounselorAssociation has established a
recommended student-to-counselorratio of 250 to 1 to ensure
effective support for students.
However, according to theirmost recent data, the national
average far exceeds thisrecommendation.
The importance of these ratioshas been powerfully demonstrated
in a comprehensive multi-statestudy published in the
(01:02):
Professional School CounselingJournal.
This research, led by Dr PegDonahue, found that schools with
more favorablecounselor-to-student ratios
showed higher SAT scores,increased post-secondary
enrollment and lower rates ofchronic absenteeism.
Particularly telling was theirfinding that in states with
higher counselor-to-studentratios, school experienced more
(01:23):
suspensions and worse academicoutcomes across subject areas of
English, math and science.
Building on these findings, theNational Association of School
Psychologists emphasizes thatcomprehensive school-based
mental health services areessential for creating safe and
supportive learning environments.
Their research demonstratesthat when students have access
(01:43):
to qualified mental healthprofessionals in schools, we see
improvements across multipleareas academic performance,
school attendance and overallstudent well-being.
Now, despite this clear evidenceof impact, there's still
significant challenges inproviding equitable access to
these vital services.
The US Department of Education'scivil rights data collection
has highlighted significantdisparities in access to school
(02:06):
counselors, particularlyaffecting schools in urban areas
and those serving predominantlyminority populations.
This research underscores thevital importance of
organizations working to ensureevery student has access to
quality mental health support inschools quality mental health
support in schools and todaywe're fortunate to have with us
(02:26):
someone who's been leading thischarge in America's largest
school district for nearly fourdecades.
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel is apioneering force in school-based
mental health counseling.
As Executive Director ofCounseling in Schools, cis, a
nonprofit that embeds mentalhealth counselors throughout New
York City's school system.
Under his leadership, cis hasgrown to place over 200 mental
(02:47):
health professionals in morethan 70 schools and community
centers, reaching over 10,000individuals.
The impact of this work speaksfor itself, with CIS schools
seeing a remarkable 20-dayincrease in student attendance
and achieving a 95% on-timegraduation rate for eligible
seniors.
Kevin's insights from workingin America's largest and most
diverse school district offer aunique window into both the
(03:11):
challenges and possibilities inschool-based mental health
support.
Welcome, kevin, it's an honorto have you with us today.
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (03:18):
It's a pleasure to be with you, Lisa.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (03:20):
Could you start by explaining what CIS is
and how it supports students inNew York City schools?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (03:27):
Sure Well, cis, or Counseling in Schools,
is a nonprofit organization inNew York City that provides
social-emotional supports tostudents in schools.
Right now our main focus is asit has been since 1986, on
public schools, and our servicesintegrate largely into
communities where there is a bitof a gap in access or
(03:50):
availability of social emotionalsupport services as a broad
category, but as a deepercategory really, mental health
perspective and mental healthservice providers.
So we connect with schoolcommunities, or school
communities connect with usthrough various means of
contracting.
Often they're governmentsources of contract or programs
(04:12):
our mission is aligned with orfoundations that support the
work.
And then we meet with thatschool community.
We understand what it is thatthey see their needs as being
and what types of elements aregoing to be the right ones to
kind of address what they'reconcerned about in their
community.
And then we hire people whobecome full-time members of that
(04:35):
team in the school, so theywork for counseling in schools
but they really embed themselvesin the school on an everyday
basis and when we're doing ourjob really really well,
counseling in schools staffappear to be another staff in
the building doing work alongwith all the other staff in the
building.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (04:53):
That's amazing .
So now, new York City has alongstanding history of being
referred to as America's meltingpot, and you've had a lot of
recent influxes with thousandsof asylum seekers, so that
student population remainsincredibly diverse.
How does CIS adapt itsapproaches to meet the varying
cultural perspectives and thoseneeds?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (05:13):
Sure, well, counseling in schools, we
really take a community-basedapproach.
So you'll hear me inreferencing and answer to your
question.
Sometimes I'll refer to aschool community reaches out to
us that takes the place of aprincipal, or'll refer to a
school community reaches out tous that takes the place of a
principal or an individual in aschool building.
But we think about it from theperspective of the community in
which that school sits and whoare the students and the faculty
(05:36):
who make up the school buildingas a community of people.
So when we take that approach,we're aligning our needs
assessment and then we'realigning our program design to
what's happening in thatcommunity.
So, with the large influx ofasylum seeking children that
came into the city and to 2023,there were 60,000 students that
(05:56):
entered the New York City publicschool system who had not been
in the country months before,let alone in a school system
within the country.
So there was an awful lot ofwork to do, which started in
(06:19):
most places with meeting verybasic needs and working on being
a partner in the community'sresponse around creating basic
need supply services whether itbe, you know, coats and shoes
and access to food and reallybasic kinds of services.
And then one of the things thatwe did within those communities
that we're working in, we wentinto and we're continuing to do
(06:42):
this going into the temporaryhousing facilities that the city
provided for them so that wewere working directly with the
families, not just the students,so that they would be oriented
towards what it is that theirchildren would be experiencing
in the schools and they wouldlearn how to work with that.
Yet the step before that thatwe needed to take with that
particular population was reallymake sure that we had a broader
(07:06):
range of staff who were reallyfamiliar with that immigration
experience from South Americancountries, which is largely what
that influx included.
So we very specifically createdrecruitment campaigns for staff
in other languages to recruitpeople into these efforts with
(07:26):
us, and that was really animportant step for us to really
be able to communicateeffectively.
One of the concepts that I putforward in a lot of our work is
that you need people who, withinthe communities we're working
in, are seen as crediblemessengers, and that can be
anyone from.
You know who's delivering any,delivering any kind of
socio-educational piece or ifyou're doing real sit-down
(07:48):
mental health types ofinterventions.
But you need to be credible tothe person who you're addressing
, and people can bridge thatcredibility gap pretty quickly
if they can kind of relate alittle bit more to the
experience.
So we use the melting pot ofthe city to our advantage.
I would put it that way becauseit's not like there weren't a
community of people here.
It just became a crisis becauseof those numbers and it
(08:11):
probably was known that the waythat people came here was not of
their own volition necessarily.
They voluntarily came into thecountry but they weren't
necessarily thinking they werecoming to New York City coming
to New York City.
So there was really a lot to dothere and we were able to get
people in the city toparticipate with us who had the
right qualifications to workaround the mental health needs
(08:31):
of the students and families.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (08:33):
You also have a lot of different citywide
challenges other than that like9-11.
And you also are facing at themoment one of the highest levels
of homelessness since the GreatDepression of the 1930s.
That affects about one in everyeight students in your city
schools.
How have you seen the role ofschool counselors evolve to meet
those kinds of children'schanging needs?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (08:54):
Yeah, I mean I think you know, go back
to what I said a few minutes ago.
I mean I think it really isstarting with basic needs, right
?
We kind of say, like it'sMaslow over Bloom, you have to
really start there.
Not that that wasn't always thecase, but you could kind of
assume that maybe a few of thestudents that you were working
with would need some basic needs, but most of the time you would
be going up that ladder to tryto get into some of the other
(09:16):
developmental stages.
But before you can really dothat now, because of the numbers
that you mentioned and 108 is astaggering number in our city,
which has close to a millionstudents in the system, and
that's just the public educationsystem.
That leaves out the charterschools and the private schools
and the religious-based schoolsand so all of those students who
(09:38):
are going through that, youreally come into their
educational experience in a verydifferent sort of orientation
towards the goals that they mayhave or the opportunities that
we think that we're providingthem with.
You know, what we're seeing isthat children and families don't
see much past next week or amonth from now, whereas in the
(10:00):
education system there's do whatyou need to do today, but the
vision is a longer goal.
When you get that degree, whenyou get that diploma, when you
get past that, then theopportunities open up.
It's very, very difficult forstudents and families who are in
a day-to-day life situation,for their basic need of housing,
to adopt that or really feelconnected to that mission, to
(10:21):
that mission.
So you have to stay with peopleon really the fundamental food,
shelter, clothing, things thatthey need.
Seeing goals there be met thenallow them to sort of be a
little bit more open towardsworking through some of the
other things.
So one of the other ways thatwe address this is that part of
counseling in schools work isalso working with the staff in
(10:42):
schools.
So we call our staff counselorsand they are embedded in the
building.
We have also a team of peoplewho do training for all of the
staff in the school.
So we think that it's really,really important that everybody
takes a particular lens towardsunderstanding who the students
are in their school and how tointerpret what the responses the
(11:05):
children are giving to youalong the way, and so you know
homework that may not be done inthe same way, or the conditions
that someone shows up in witheither the material that you
gave them the night before orthe clothing that they're
wearing.
You know, how do you understandwhat that is and how do you
respond to it are really thingsthat are nuanced in a lot of
(11:25):
ways, and teachers who aresteeped in their content areas
aren't necessarily as educatedyet in terms of how to attune to
those relationships that needto be built on a little bit of a
different manner, and so wereally work on that as part of
what we're doing in schools tomake sure that we're not the
sole responsible for the socialemotional support of students.
(11:48):
One of the things I like to sayis that every single person
resides within a school buildingis going to affect every other
person's emotional well-beingand their view on how they
socialize, and so it's importantin the adult community in the
school building that there'salignment and understanding.
No matter what your role is, nomatter what your degree is,
you're having an impact on theemotional and social experience
(12:12):
of everyone else around you.
So understanding that andappreciating that goes a long
way towards alleviating sort ofthe sole responsibility for a
child's well-being on one or twopeople because that's what
their title is but gives everychild a chance to have that net
around them that they can getgrowth opportunities, whether
it's in the lunchroom or in themath class or in my counseling
(12:35):
office.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (12:36):
What kind of mental health issues are you
seeing amongst the students inyour schools today?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (12:42):
I think this is similar across the
country.
There are really heighteneddegrees of anxiety.
I think coming out of COVID thesocial anxiety increased quite
a bit.
I think the face-to-faceintegration, people
understanding how to workthrough the smallest of
challenges or what I.
Well, now I'm judging that, butI'm saying smallest of
(13:04):
challenges because it would haveseemed that way if I would
think about other yearspre-COVID that were easily sort
of negotiated.
Particularly the youngerchildren are having a harder
time working that out.
So there's needs there andthere's a kind of anxiety that
you see throughout that level.
We're definitely seeing higherrates of suicide, ideation of
(13:26):
young people feeling hopelessand disoriented towards life in
general, what they're doing,where they're going.
Another issue that's been comingup quite a bit lately here in
New York City there was thelegalization of marijuana and I
think the access to some of theways in which it's not
necessarily smoking, but theaccess to that availability,
(13:49):
whether it's things that youngpeople eat or gummies or what
have you, is really not a goodthing.
It's just too easily accessible.
I know it's not intended to bethat way.
I mean I suspect afterprohibition there was maybe
something similar going on, butit's something of great concern
to us, maybe something similargoing on, but it's something of
great concern to us.
I think the other thing I wouldadd to that that does add to
(14:09):
the social anxiety andeverything else and being
grappled with on a policy levelhere in the city is the impact
of social media and thereforethe transmission of social media
through cell phones.
You know, that idea thatstudents are kind of always on
somewhere, that the news of theworld and the news of their
friends is a constant streaminto their consciousness leads
(14:33):
to some of that anxiety but alsocontributes to a kind of
distractibility and a challengewith focus and also at times,
obviously, depending on whatthat content is, can lead
towards various forms of mentalchallenges depression, anxiety,
frustration, anger, differenttypes of feelings as well as
different types of stressors.
That again from the outsideperson.
(14:54):
When you're not in that spacewith them, it becomes harder to
understand what someone isresponding to or where they're
coming from.
I'm a clinical social workermyself and worked in the schools
for quite a while, and one ofthe tenets that you always do is
that you want to meet yourclient where they are.
You want to find out andunderstand how to connect with
them on where they're at and theaccess to other types of
(15:15):
information and experiences thatstudents have on the internet
make that really challenging tosort of break through and feel
like you're really connectingwith someone, that they've
really been able to communicateto you all of what it is that's
kind of on their mind or intheir experience, and that's
something that is being grappledwith all over, but certainly in
New York.
(15:35):
There's a lot of discussionright now on whether or not you
can remove cell phones fromschools, whether you can't, and
all of the challenges aroundthat.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (15:44):
Especially when schools want the technology
integration and if they don'thave the funding to be able to
support maybe a one-to-onedevice and the students have the
phones, that's a way to maybemeet that standard.
But when you're thinking aboutthe news of the world I had
never considered that weighingon them.
If you're seeing it streamingall the time as soon as you open
(16:05):
up your phone looking at thenegative things that are going
on in the world, it's just likeanother thing added on to the
hopelessness feeling maybe ofwow, I feel bad now because of
my situation, but I'm lookingout what is there to look out
towards, because this doesn'tlook good to me.
I had never considered thatbefore, so it's a great
perspective.
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (16:24):
Yeah, definitely, and so much of that
information comes through inimagery, which is so much more
even impactful and hard to knowalways how someone's going to
interpret the images that theysee.
But the images also do tend to,you know, sort of stick.
I'm just thinking about ittoday with all of the images
that I was seeing of the firesin Los Angeles that are just
(16:45):
devastating to look at andpeople are talking about their
houses burning down.
Well, I know there's a lot ofkids sitting in shelters who are
there because of house fires.
Houses are burning and I don'thave a home.
Where's someone going to go withthat?
And why should they have to tryto figure that out at age seven
or eight?
Even if you just heard, oh,there are fires in Los Angeles,
that might be bad.
(17:06):
Even if you just heard, oh,there are fires in Los Angeles,
that might be bad.
But those images are everywherebecause they're so graphic,
they communicate the experiencethat's going on there so well
from a media perspective.
They're not going to edit them.
They're going to find theclearest ones to portray, for us
to sort of feel that concern,but we don't really have a way
(17:26):
to filter our children fromthose same experiences.
There isn't anything that'scome along to do that.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (17:34):
Right, that's good enough to filter it towards
children's level of mentalmaturity and, with all of those
battles that children are facing, that it adds to a resistance
to want to go to school.
They're having a hard timewanting to attend.
Yet your data is showing thatthere is actually remarkable
improvements in attendance andgraduation rates with the
(17:56):
students that CIS is serving.
So what kind of strategies haveyou seen that have proven to be
effective in addressing chronicabsenteeism?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (18:06):
Yeah, I mean I think there is, by and
large, that we have been able tomove the needle for a lot of
the students I wish I could sayall of our students, but a lot
of our students and I think it'sa couple of things.
One of our programs that seemsto have really been moving us
forward called Success Mentoring, which is essentially pairing a
group of students with someonewho is not that necessarily far
(18:29):
away in age from them.
So some of the high schoolstudents who have graduated and
maybe gone to community collegesor done some other things and
stayed in the area, we'veemployed them on a part-time
basis to come back into theschool or in the community that
they grew up in and form amentoring type of relationship.
I mean, I use mentoring alittle bit loosely because that
can mean a lot of things to alot of people, but it becomes a
(18:50):
contact person, someone you canjust have an easy conversation
with, but someone who's going tofollow you on a day-to-day
basis.
So if you're not in schoolthey're going to be the one
making the phone call.
Before we set that relationshipup, we send a card home to the
parent with an image of theperson who's going to be their
mentor.
We invite them to come in andmeet them.
(19:11):
So it's involving the family,it's bringing people from the
community to be part of thatcredible messenger piece I was
speaking about before.
That really seems to becritical.
It really is strengtheningcommunity ties within the school
itself for the students who arethere, so that they know that
they are heard and they're alittle bit more willing to go
through the struggles of notknowing, which is what learning
(19:32):
is all about.
And then in the places wheremost successful the schools are
really sophisticated at usingdata so that's almost an
algorithm approach to whensomeone hits a certain number of
days absence, there's sort of atier one, tier two, tier three,
tier four approach along theline, so that we're not just
throwing everybody in with thesame set of services, but we're
(19:53):
using those peer mentorsstrategically, that the school
has staff that they usestrategically, that we're
maximizing relationships thatexist.
It might be our peer mentor,but it might also be the school
safety officer, or it might bethe math teacher, someone who is
the right person to sort ofpush the button when you're just
at tier one and if it gets uphigher it might be an outside
referral.
(20:13):
There are situations where youfind out there's a domestic
violence situation going on,there's someone caring for a
really sick adult in their worldthat they weren't talking about
, or they have an illness thatisn't really being treated, and
so when you get some of thatinformation through these
relationships that feel lessthreatening, then that sense
that they've done somethingwrong and someone is coming, so
it's already in this punitivekind of approach.
(20:35):
We're going to get them off thestreet and back into school.
That paradigm is still how mostpeople think of absenteeism,
but it's the opposite of thatReally.
It's how do we nurture arelationship, create engagement
and have the school become aplace that people know they go
to to find that kind of supportand relief, as well as that
education.
In the places we're successfuland have the most impact, we've
(20:58):
been able to expand the range ofhow students experience their
school and the families as well.
There's a lot that goes on thatwe do.
We survey the parents reallyfrequently to find out.
You know, what is it that youneed from the community?
What are you looking for?
What do you have to offer tothe community so that we're not
just, you know, seeing people asneedy, but we're seeing people
(21:19):
as capable.
When you start to do that, thefeeling of the whole place
changes.
And so then students who aren'tthere, when people reaches out
and says, hey, you weren't here,we missed you, like they
believe it.
Like, oh, yeah, they did miss me.
Like, oh, my mom does thisthing, or my dad does this thing
with the school, Like, yeah,that's a place I need to be,
we're a part of something.
And in our massive city you caneasily just be student in row
(21:41):
three, seat four on the left.
So if you weren't there, it'sone less paper to grade, you
know.
But if you change that dynamicsignificantly, you really do get
better results.
And then students start toachieve, and so there's a high
rate of students graduating.
It's not always a four-yeargraduation rate, because there
are things that are in the wayfor that, but there is a
graduation rate that increases.
So that's a really criticalstep for whatever else is going
(22:03):
to happen.
There's so much data about thedifference between a high school
graduate and a non-high schoolgraduate and then you go to
college and not, but just thedata really supports that
getting across that line is amuch better indicator for life
outcomes is a much betterindicator for life outcomes.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (22:22):
Yeah, you do a lot of crisis response as well
as your day-to-day work, so Ican see how it really relates to
a lot of different challengesthat you are facing in the
schools.
What kind of crises docounselors typically handle in
their day-to-day work?
Like, what's that range looklike?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (22:36):
Yeah, I mean most times there's what we
would refer to as maybe small Ccrises, involving individual
students and things that are intheir world our counselors are
dealing with more regularly on aday-to-day and that might mean
that we spend a little bit moretime with that student,
depending on what they're goingthrough or what their needs are,
or that we're doing a littlebit more almost case management,
(22:56):
if there are again breaking itdown to the basic needs that
they're missing or advocacy thatwe might need to do.
And then there are what wouldbe sort of the capital letter
crises which are going to affectlarger groups of people.
I mean we've unfortunately hadour share of schools where
someone has been killed in theschool community, one last year
which was really horrific, whereone member of the school
(23:18):
community perpetrated violenceon another member and that
person ended up passing away.
So the whole school had tograpple with both the loss of
this one person, but then alsothe culpability of the
perpetrator, who was also seenas someone that had standing in
the community, so reallycomplicated.
We do have a protocol, one thathad been developed post 9-11,
(23:40):
for school-wide, school-basedcrisis response.
We pulled from materials from alot of different places, so we
didn't invent anything on ourown have really important
factors to create and considerin terms of how you message and
how you get the information out,what safe rooms look like and
(24:01):
what communication patterns looklike, and whether you do or
don't do some kind of memorialpiece within the school or how
you handle the conflict Withinthat regard, borrowing a lot
from restorative practices, ofhow you bring everyone's voices
together to have a piece of howyou move from harm and conflict
to resolution.
So when those things occur, wehave about 200 staff throughout
(24:23):
the city three clinicalsupervisors, about 17 program
managers.
We put together a team to goout to the school because often
our staff who are in the schoolare probably as affected.
They may be really important ifthey can handle being a part of
it.
But, like in the case that Iwas referring to.
That person was the counselorto one of the people who was
involved in the situation.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (24:44):
So their experience was tied to it.
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (24:47):
You can't ignore that we put a lot into
our own staff in terms of thesupport that those people need
to be able to stay fresh andcontinue.
So vicarious trauma issomething we think a lot about.
We ask our counselors to bevery conscious of, but also that
we very intentionally createlearning experiences as well as
regular supervisory.
(25:08):
And when we say supervision,it's really kind of like medical
supervision, right, finding outhow you're doing and what are
the situations that you'reinvolved in and where do you
need additional support or ideasor context to be able to work
through those things.
So that's an important elementand that shows up a lot when
there is these sort of largecrises in schools that glaring
(25:31):
element of when we need to makesure we're leaning into that
counselor and their needs aswell as the needs of the whole
community.
But we do do that on aneveryday basis as well.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (25:40):
There's a fantastic wraparound services
that you're providing.
It seems like you've thought ofjust about everything to
support all of the people withinthat school building, which is
absolutely amazing.
What do schools and communitiesdo if they lack mental health
services within their facilities?
What kind of pathways orsupport systems can they reach
out to to help their studentsthat are in crisis?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (26:04):
The city has a number of places that
schools can reach out to.
I think that the challenge isbreaking the access gap that
services like ours do.
But you know, there issomething called the Office of
School Health here, which isreally a bridge between the
Department of Health and MentalHygiene and the Department of
Education, and they doeverything from sort of the
nurses, which you might think,but they also have this whole
(26:25):
group of social workers andpsychologists and people that
they can, on a crisis basis,allocate to a school.
So it is, as a system, prepared, if you would, for these kinds
of things, and eitherfortunately or unfortunately,
they happen all too frequently.
I think it's the day-to-daypiece that I would be the most
concerned about within schoolsthat appear to be functioning
(26:48):
very well.
Like there's a school that wework with in the city, it's one
of the schools that usuallystands out as one of the higher
functioning schools, withstudents who are going on to
achieve, and they were smartenough about three years ago or
just after COVID, to recognizethat there was more going on
there than they were addressing.
So they were able to actuallyraise funds internally to bring
(27:09):
our services in, and it'scritical there it's really
really critical for students whoare in high pressure, high
situations, that you might lookfrom the outside and you walk
into that school building andyou think this is paradise, like
I want my child to go here.
And it's anywhere from there toa school and a community that
you would walk through wheresome of the needs would be more
(27:29):
you know, glaring and staringyou in the face.
One of the ways in which COVIDchanged the mental health
experience was that it was acrisis that was experienced
across the board.
When I was a counselor inschool, there was kind of what I
would refer to as a trauma gap,like the difference between my
experience of personal traumaand the students' experience of
personal trauma was different.
(27:50):
I had more to offer, more togive, not that I had none, but
there was a gap there in termsof being able to feel like, okay
, I can hold this, I've got roomand we can work together, and
then you're going to find yourstrength and you're going to
work through this and then we'regoing to kind of be okay
together.
And when it hit everybody, I wasas scared as anybody else.
(28:11):
I didn't leave my apartment forfour months, like I only went
up on my roof of my apartmentbuilding to get air once in a
while, like washing groceries,like all that stuff that we all
did was real and it stayed.
And we had a close cousin inhis 40s who died from the
disease, and people who in thecommunities had parents and
grandparents and siblings weredying, and the freezer trucks in
(28:32):
front of the hospitals werereal.
I mean, this all happened andwe all experienced it at the
same time, some ways to the samedegrees, and I think that
shaking of that and thatleveling of that gap did a
couple of things.
It created some empathy.
At the same time, it took awaysome of the stability for
(28:53):
children, because the adultsbecome less stable, because
we're now more anxious and Ithink that translates into
students being more anxious.
We're less certain about what'shappening.
Students are less clear aboutwhere they're heading in their
own future.
We're more divided within whatwe can discuss, what kind of
conflicts we can resolve, who'sreally with me, who's not.
(29:16):
We're seeing that in children,right.
So I think there's such animportant element to moving
forward right now that theadults in schools, but the
adults everywhere, really lookat our well-being, what we need
to do for healing, not kind oflooking at children as the
problem or the group that needshelp.
But we need help together sothat children can get back to
(29:40):
looking at us as stable,confident, clear,
forward-thinking, understandinghow to socialize, how to be
happy, how to do all thosethings.
When we get there, I thinkchildren are going to look at
that again and you'll start tosee some of that suicidal
ideation go down.
You'll start to see some of theanxiety drop.
It's just being osmosis-wise,sort of passed through and I get
(30:04):
really concerned when we don'tfocus on that.
We focus a lot on we got tohelp the kids and we do, but I
think we have to do that inlarge part by also acknowledging
and recognizing and helpingourselves.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (30:16):
This is a wonderful piece of advice.
You've been working with CISfor over 40 years and have a lot
of insight and perspective asto the needs of the communities,
the students, the staff, thefamilies in those areas.
What message would you want toshare with our audience today?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (30:56):
You know what I just said.
I would often hear that mentalhealth or social emotional
learning is important because itserves the educational progress
of a child, and I would justwant to tweak that.
I really do think that we willdo better in education systems
if we make mental well-being,mental health progress on par
(31:20):
with how we look at academicprogress, so that we maybe even
develop report cards ormechanisms of measurement of how
well is someone doingemotionally?
What kinds of skills havepeople been able to develop
socially?
You see that in kindergartenstuff and then it drops away and
I think we need to keep it.
There are many people who arebrilliant and their actions
(31:48):
socially are a little bit lessthan what you want to see.
So those are outliers to adegree, but they also kind of
help prove the point.
I hope that we really need tovalue these things equally and
see schools as the opportunityfor building those human
capacities, for a range ofemotional experience, for
emotional flexibility, forsocial skill development, to be
able to socialize effectivelywith anybody, whether you agree
(32:09):
or disagree, and how you holdpeople in your life and how you
maintain those relationships andbuild and grow and network, and
all of that at the same timethat you're learning about how
the world works and how todevelop new ideas and think
properly about how to contributeto the world as you grow up.
So I think those are things thatI would hope people would take
with them into their schoolboard meetings, into their other
(32:29):
conversations.
So there isn't like, okay, wehired a counselor, so we're
taking care of that.
You've hired a counselor,that's good, but is the whole
building, is the whole school?
Is everybody on board with howwe're developing this and are we
measuring it?
Are we really seeing that we'redoing okay with that?
I really am passionate aboutthis.
I think it really needs to be,just, you know, reorganized in
(32:49):
terms of how we think abouteducation.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (32:51):
I hope that we can all learn from your
wonderful modeling and examplesand apply them to our own school
districts.
So thank you so much for whatyou're doing with students and
communities in New York.
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (33:02):
Well, thank you, lisa, and thank you for
this platform and opportunity toyou know, bring this dialogue
and the others that you'vebrought into, you know, into the
public square, so to speak, forpeople to think about and
hopefully continue to sort ofmove forward in those
discussions and dialogues,because there's no one answers
to any of this, but the more wetalk about it and the more
people share, I think, thecloser we get towards the kinds
(33:25):
of experiences that we want tohave ourselves, as well as what
we want for our children.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (33:30):
How can someone reach CIS?
Kevin Dahill-Fuchel (33:33):
Great way is through our website,
counselinginschoolsorg.
There's a little link in therethat says let's get started.
There are a number of resourceson our website that are free to
download and able to be usedboth for parents and teachers in
classrooms, and you knowthere's a contact form on there
as well, and so we love to, youknow, hear from people and
understand what it is that wecan do to support or, you know,
(33:55):
always looking for partners inthe work.
I mean, I think that'ssomething I would add to Lisa to
what it is that's important forus within our work within
communities, is that we do bringand connect with a lot of other
nonprofits and for-profits andreligious groups.
Like all of that's reallyimportant to not do this work
isolated and in an alone fashion, and we don't do that.
(34:16):
So if there are those kinds ofinquiries out there, people that
are looking to partner or wantto be a part of what it is that
we're doing here, I think we canbe a part of it.
What it is you're doingsomewhere else, we're happy to
entertain this.
Dr. Lisa Hassler (34:28):
Absolutely, thank you.
If you're interested inlearning more about school-based
mental health counseling orsupporting initiatives like CIS,
visit counselinginschoolsorg.
By investing in student mentalhealth, we invest in their
future.
If you have a story aboutwhat's working in your schools
that you'd like to share, youcan email me at lisa at
(34:54):
drlisahasslercom, or visit mywebsite at wwwdrlisahasslercom
and send me a message.
If you like this podcast,subscribe and tell a friend.
The more people that know, thebigger impact it will have.
And if you find value to thecontent in this podcast,
consider becoming a supporter byclicking on the supporter link
in the show notes.
It is the mission of thispodcast to shine light on the
good in education so that itspreads, affecting positive
change.
So let's keep working togetherto find solutions that focus on
(35:17):
our children's success.
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