During May’s Mental Health Awareness Month, it’s important to focus on a pressing issue impacting our community: youth mental health. Palm Beach County has seen an alarming increase in mental health disorders among students in recent years. In the 2021 school year alone, nearly 3,000 students sought counseling from mental health professionals for prevalent issues such as depression, anxiety, school-related stress, interpersonal relationships, and trauma.
Recognizing the need for urgent intervention, the Palm Beach County Education Foundation partnered with the Palm Beach County School District to launch the Community Resilience Initiative. This initiative is made possible through funding from the Florida Education Foundation Consortium through the Florida Department of Education and is designed to provide students with the tools and support they need to overcome life’s challenges.
At the heart of this initiative is a series of resilience training programs designed to help children cope with and overcome adversity. These programs focus on helping students manage their emotions and thoughts in response to different environments and stressors, and teach adaptive coping strategies that are essential to mental health.
In the initial phase of the program, master’s-level clinicians will be trained and placed in schools to pilot resilience lessons, activities, toolkits, materials, and coaching with students and families during summer school in 2023. , provided. The impact of this support is significant, positively impacting more than 3,200 of her students and families across 10 elementary schools. Feedback from respondents highlighted the effectiveness of the program, with 80% reporting it had a positive impact on students and a significant proportion emphasizing important life skills, resilience, social support and solutions I am referring to the coaching skills I learned.
We also provided increased youth mental health first aid training to support the district’s goal of having at least 80% of school staff trained. In addition, we worked with key stakeholders to conduct a needs assessment and gap analysis using student behavioral and mental health data to shape this year’s resilience efforts. Together, we are working to empower young people and develop resilience for future success.
While we celebrate these early successes, we recognize that our work is far from done. The next phase of this work is already underway as we continue to expand and strengthen our efforts to support students across our community.
Building on the success of the 2023 summer program, this current phase of the initiative will provide comprehensive services to students struggling with chronic absenteeism, truancy, or involvement in the juvenile justice system. We will also contribute to curriculum purchases and teacher professional development to support ongoing resilience instruction across the district. Through these targeted efforts, we will deepen the resilience of our students and their families for years to come and build student skills such as character, personal responsibility, citizenship, critical thinking, and integrity. We strive to strengthen and ensure long-term success.
We ask our community to join us in prioritizing the mental health and well-being of our future leaders. By supporting initiatives like this, we ensure that our students are prepared to thrive in the face of life’s challenges.
To learn more about our work or to make a donation, visit educationfoundationpbc.org or email info@educationfoundationpbc.org. Let’s work together to build a community where all children can grow and thrive.
Jennifer Etheridge of Boca Raton is director of programs and grants for the Education Foundation of Palm Beach County.
