School District continuing to upgrade mental health programs
School District of Lee County officials said mental health continues to be at the forefront, an initiative that began in July 2018 in the wake of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
“It was game-changing legislation that married together safety and how are the children,” School Counseling and Mental Health Services Director Lori Brooks said. “It set forth a recurring allocation under the General Appropriations Act for mental health of schools and established requirements that districts must approve for the Mental Health Allocation Plan and report outcomes for mental health to the Department of Education.”
The Tuesday afternoon School Board meeting touched upon the many layers the district says it is tackling mental health. Throughout the years additional layers and requirements have been added, as the district is required to educate children about what wellness is, resiliency skills and coping skills with stressors that life can hand them.
The Comprehensive School Mental Health Plan provides a broad spectrum of prevention, assessment, intervention and postvention services, officials said. Areas of support include swatting calls, school-based incidents or a natural disaster that could create exposure to trauma.
“We are actually charged with engaging with our community-based partners and parents to create that system approach,” Brooks said.
New this year — the district’s first Mobile Crisis Response Team — Crisis Assessment Response and Education (CARE) Team.
Brooks said the district has been building its own CARE team for the past three years. This spring they will be ready to deploy the district CARE team.
“Each region will have a dedicated CARE team ready to deploy,” she said.
This team will respond when the Circuit 20 Mobile Crisis Response Team is unavailable. This team serves Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Hendry and Glades counties.
The support starts at the school level with the school mental health team, which is comprised of school counselors, school social worker, school psychologist, a licensed mental health professional and school nurse. The school mental health teams meet weekly for fact-based problem solving — identifying students’ needs and adjusting the support the student is receiving if needed.
“We staff 57 LMHP positions. Our growth is based on data, mental health needs, school leaders’ feedback and how well we are able to meet those needs based on allocation increases,” Brooks said.
She said they assist students that may be in a crisis mode through suicide identification — the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale, which is administered by school-based mental health professionals.
“The level of response will always include the parent. We have had to make significant progress on how to implement this protocol. We are reducing the number of students based on the Baker Act,” Brooks said.
The number of involuntary examinations under the Baker Act went from 129 in 2022-2023 to 54 in 2024-2025 school year. The number of students placed under the Baker Act went from 107 for the 2022-2023 school year to 50 for the 2024-2025 school year. The number of Baker Acts initiated by the Mobile Crisis Response Team went from 67 in 2022-2023 to 30 in 2024-2025. The number of Baker Acts initiated by School Resource Officer went from 62 in 2022-2023 to 24 in the 2024-2025 school year.
The 2023-2024 school year had an increase across the board, which Brooks said was due to Hurricane Ian.
The 2024-2025 school year data was reported through Dec. 6, 2024.
The district is currently looking into potential expansion with the University of South Florida for MIDAS and Project SMARTS.
The Multi-Informant Decisional Assessment System is early identification for social-emotional and behavioral concerns through universal screening and implementation of evidence-based interventions.
Project SMARTS (School Mental Health Assessment, Response, and Training for Suicide Prevention) will adopt an innovative prevention model that aims to decrease youth suicide and increase the delivery of critical prevention and postvention supports.
Brooks said this will target up to 10 middle schools and provides staff training from USF.
“It’s a pathway for schools to become a Department of Education Suicide Prevention School. It’s a pathway for schools to become certified, staff trained in suicide prevention training and how to connect students to that support,” she said.
To reach MEGHAN BRADBURY, please email news@breezenewspapers.com