The Connection

When I was a teenager, I experienced violence at home, violence in my neighborhood, and violence at school. One common response to traumatic experiences is having fear constantly, a fear we can’t shake. It’s like a fear something bad will happen. Often this happens because something from our past is always on our minds. This is a natural feeling, but it can make it hard to feel calm even when we're safe; it certainly makes it hard to learn.

Fear is at the heart of the most horrific outcomes we see today: school shootings and suicides.

Buckets of rocks are not the answer. More guns in schools are not the answer. Increased security officer presence in schools is not the answer, and in fact could make the school-to-prison pipeline challenges even worse, furthering inequity in K-12 education and society more broadly. The answer for students involves community support, people who can empathize, normalize, and help to stabilize youth reactions to challenging situations.

Using Technology to Mobilize Community Support

What If…

Community member volunteers could be trained to provide personalized, 1:1 live social-emotional coaching over text message to support students that are dealing with stress and trauma.

Then…

  1. More Support for More Kids: it would be possible to make public dollars go further to support the mental health of students, supporting whole child learning models as well as addressing challenges with teen suicide and school shootings.

  2. Additional Support for School Staff: mental health staff in schools would be able to supervise volunteers or partner with a program holistically, helping them to identify the students who need direct support the most, and freeing up their time to do so.

  3. Community Engagement: those who wish to engage with the school community would have an additional convenient way to do so.

Not a Pipedream

An Existing Solution: Get MindRight

  • Students met where they are: on their phones. All coaching is done via text message and the platform is FERPA and COPPA compliant and student privacy certified. All interactions with students are supervised by certified mental health professionals, who monitor chats and are available for escalations.

  • Training: all volunteer coaches go through a 20-hour course to provide mental health and socioemotional coaching to youth experiencing the short- and long-term impacts of trauma. This course is delivered virtually, with role playing sessions conducted with the support of video chat.

  • Coaches: empathize with unconditional positive regard and affirmations, normalize through personalized psychoeducation on stress and coping, and stabilize using evidence-based cognitive behavioral practices and mindfulness.

  • Agency Partnership: agencies are empowered to respond more rapidly to the youth that need it most through real-time alerts in escalated and crisis situations, screen for ACES scores and trauma exposure, and weekly reports on youth emotional wellness.

  • Impact: 97% of users reported improved stress management which has led to increased attendance, improved graduation rates, and reduced suspensions.

Interested in bringing a solution like this to your community?