Supporting our Students' Mental Health
Ranee Cronquist is a counselor at Mountainside Elementary.
Ranee Cronquist is passionate about helping children to be happy and love their school experience. As a full-time counselor at Mountainside Elementary, she works individually with students and visits every classroom once a month to discuss social-emotional wellness. “We do all kinds of things, like learning about feelings and that students are in charge of those feelings,” explained Cronquist. “We also learn coping tools to deal with big feelings.”
Cronquist and counselors across the district teach students topics such as self-esteem, goal setting, decision-making, dealing with big emotions, coping, and many more. After each lesson, Cronquist also sends a letter to parents, explaining what they talked about so that parents can discuss it with children and help reinforce the lessons at home.
Since implementing Project AWARE (Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education) four years ago, Cache County School District has made significant progress in addressing its students' and staff's mental health needs. Through Project AWARE, the district implemented several strategies and programs that have improved mental health and access to resources throughout the district.
Curt Jenkins, Director of Student Services, and Debbie Rees, Social Emotional Learning and Support Coordinator, believe in the importance of addressing mental health needs among our students and staff. “As adults, I believe we have all seen how complex the world has become in recent years. We know that when kids' physiological, safety, and social/emotional needs aren't met, they aren't able to learn or thrive,” Jenkins explained. “Our focus on mental health counselors in our schools, along with social-emotional strategies, helps our students develop important life skills which empower them to build resilience and thrive no matter the difficulties they will encounter throughout their lives.”
In the past four years, the district has placed mental health counselors or interns in each secondary school and provided support to the elementary schools. The district has also strengthened relationships with community partners.
Focusing on an upstream approach to prevention, the district emphasizes catching mental health concerns early on. Partnering with Bear River Mental Health, the district offers several free mental health screenings each year for students in grades 1-12. In addition, elementary teachers complete a student well-being screener three times a year for students whose behaviors have been flagged.
Along with catching concerns early on, the district focuses on providing prevention tools as quickly as possible. For example, social-emotional learning strategies are universal tools taught to all students. Counselors and teachers work together to teach children life skills such as decision-making, emotion management, teamwork, and making connections to prepare them to be successful.
According to Rees, “Our Project AWARE mental health counselors and school counselors create a force to be reckoned with.” Passionate about serving the needs of their students, they work hard each day to provide the best care available. Rees continued, “We are the safe place, the core of our communities, the place that families trust and look to for support. And it makes sense, if we want students to succeed academically and live healthy lives, we first have to help them get to a place mentally and physically where they can engage in learning.”