More than 17% of Indiana students considered suicide in 2022. Nearly 13% of those students planned their end. Caden Kerns was once part of those statistics. It was the summer before Kerns’ freshman year at Eastern High School. He was having suicidal thoughts. He cut his wrists.
“I was struggling with a lot of things,” Kerns said.
His parents sought out a therapist, and hit a frustrating wall.
“It would take a very long time, four months just to get an evaluation,” Kerns said.
Luckily, a friend of his mom, who was a life coach, was able to help immediately. She gave Kerns a new perspective, helping him focus on the good things in his life. It’s a perspective he carries to this day.
“A lot of stuff we worked on was taking a step back,” Kerns said.
Now 16, Kerns keeps himself busy with school, swimming and lifeguarding at the Kokomo Family YMCA.
But he’s also making time to be an advocate for student mental health.
Kerns was among several students who spoke last month to state legislators during a roundtable hosted by Democratic State Sen. J.D. Ford (Indianapolis).
There, the Eastern student shared his story and brought with him a call to action.
More school counselors needed
The student-to-school-counselor ratio in Indiana is 1 to 519.
For some small and rural schools, there might be one counselor for all students.
“That is way out of the norm and way out of what our national organization recommends,” said Ryan Preci, chairman of the Indiana School Counselor Association.
The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 1 to 250.
School counselors provide a whole host of services for students, ranging from scheduling classes, career and college prep and social-emotional lessons.
They might cover a class for a teacher, teach students about self-regulating their emotions and other soft skills, and help students explore what they want to do after graduation.
“They’re kind of the backbone of a school,” Preci said.
Preci is a school counselor himself and oversees the counseling departments for Indianapolis Public Schools. A school that doesn’t have enough counselors to properly serve its students impedes the work a counselor can actually do, according to Preci.
Ideally, counselors provide proactive services.
This might look like implementing college and career readiness programs at each grade level. Or classroom lessons about soft skills and conflict resolutions.
On the other hand, reactive services look like helping a teenager explore post-grad opportunities when they’re approaching graduation or working with students on social-emotional skills after outbursts or disciplinary action.
“You’re reacting to what’s there, and what students need in the end, but it might be too late,” Preci said. “Quite frankly, not every student will be serviced in that way (proactively). You’re putting out fires.”
Kerns called on legislators to provide schools with more funding to hire more counselors, behavioral therapists and social workers. Behavioral therapists were added by some schools using pandemic relief funds, though that funding has since ran out, and some of those positions were eliminated.
“There’s no reason not to dedicate funding for what’s needed,” Kerns said.
Preci said more people are needed, and that requires more money.
“We’re going to be facing a school counselor shortage in the next 10, 15 years,” he said.
That shortage is already at some schools. Preci said it’s common for elementary schools to only have one counselor.
In Vigo County
Vigo County and the Vigo County School Corp. are aware of the importance of mental health in young people.
For instance, Vigo County Commissioners on Aug. 26 presented a $150,000 check to the Vigo County School Corp. in support of the Project AWARE mental health program.
Project AWARE — or Advancing Wellness and Resilience in Education — includes mental health promotion, awareness, prevention, intervention and resilience-building.
The funding is through the federal American Rescue Plan Act. Previously, the district had a grant for its Project AWARE mental health programs, but that grant had run out.
The ARPA funds enable the district to continue its mental health programs run by program coordinator Megan Kirk. The district’s hope is that it will be able to obtain other funding sources for the programs next year.
Earlier in August, Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, co-chair and co-founder of Indiana Mental Health Roundtable, led a local round-table of civic and educational leaders. That forum was focused on mental health issues and attacking the stigmas surrounding mental illness.
Two pilot programs were discussed. One at Terre Haute North Vigo High School is already underway and one has been approved with a social worker at Terre Haute South High School.
The goal is to have three pilot programs at the high schools, one with a therapist, one with a social worker and the last with a clinic, but schools Superintendent Chris Himsel said at the roundtable it’s difficult to make the programs sustainable given limited budgets.
Terre Haute also is home to Team of Mercy, a local nonprofit organization that supports individuals and families who have lost loved ones to suicide. It also strives to bring awareness to the community and help break the stigmas off suicide and mental health.
Additionally, VCSC high schools have had the Bring Change to Mind Club. BC2M is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging dialogue about mental health and to raising awareness, understanding and empathy.
Boosting health department relations
When the Howard County Health Department surveys schools on what they need help with, mental health is always a top answer.
But it can be tricky coordinating help. That’s because mental health isn’t one of the state’s 15 Key Performance Indicators, a series of core public health services that local health departments are evaluated on. It’s part of Health First Indiana, a new initiative from the state that tracks how local departments are addressing key areas of public health.
The indicators include tobacco and vaping prevention, lead case management and maternal and child health.
Health departments receive funding to address the indicators. This is why it can be difficult for health departments to offer mental health help to schools.
But not impossible. The Howard County Health Department partnered with schools, offering life coaching for school staff through Indiana Wesleyan University, student workshops aligned with the state’s employability skills standards that focus on communication, emotional regulation and conflict resolution and linking schools up with Turning Point, a local organization focused on substance abuse and mental health recovery.
Turning Point provides peer recovery coaches to schools. These people work with groups of students who need additional attention.
All the programs are optional. Schools pick what they want. Parents and students opt in, as well.
Some of the programming pitched by the health department, in conjunction with community partners like Turning Point and the local Purdue Extension office, faced opposition from the right-wing parent group Moms for Liberty.
School officials argue many students do not receive social-emotional learning at home and the lack of those soft skills impedes learning and leads to classroom disruptions.
The parent group eventually came around to the program after a meeting with the health department.
“I’m glad they were willing to work with us, even though they didn’t agree with it at first,” said Bethany Wenger, school liaison for the Howard County Health Department.
Still though, having mental health added to the indicator list could streamline even more community-based solutions, she explained.
“It would be easier, because it gets rid of the gray area, what can and can we not support,” Wenger said.
Part of Kerns’ pitch to legislators includes strengthening partnerships between school systems and local health departments, specifically by getting mental health added to the list of indicators.
“Our school counselors don’t need to be the only people we can talk to,” he said.
Tribune-Star staff also contributed to this report.
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