Growing through it
Managing the student mental health crisis after COVID
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Published
Growing through it
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Published
For our team, it's been really crucial to help people understand that (this work) isn't just a mental health professional sitting down with a student in a counseling session, but that day-to-day, everyone plays a role. Everyone can be supportive; everyone can do these small, tangible, actionable things to support mental health and well being and support thriving.
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Established in 1809, Miami University is located in Oxford, Ohio, with regional campuses in Hamilton and Middletown, a learning center in West Chester, and a European study center in Luxembourg. Interested in learning more about the Ohio School-Based Center of Excellence for Prevention and Early Intervention? Visit their website for more information.
President Greg Crawford
Hello. I'm Greg Crawford, president of Miami University, and welcome to "In Such a Place." The podcast where we explore the future of higher education and the vital role colleges and universities play in shaping our world. Today, we're with Dr. Cricket Meehan, the executive director of the School-Based Center of Excellence for Prevention and Early Intervention and associate director of the Center for the Study and Support of Children and Families of the Incarcerated in the Department of Psychology here at Miami University, Her work focuses on addressing non-academic barriers to learning for K-12 students, through partnerships, advocacy, training, and bridging the gap between academic research and practical mental health solutions. Welcome to the podcast, Cricket. We're so glad to have you here today.
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Thank you for having me. It is my pleasure to be here.
President Greg Crawford
First question for you: The pandemic seemed to elevate mental health issues in schools. And how have you seen the scope of mental health challenges evolve since then? And what are the most urgent concerns that you see facing students and educators today?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
So even before the pandemic, we knew that mental health concerns affected approximately one in five of our young people, so about 20% and those students were experiencing a whole range of things like anxiety and depression. When the pandemic hit, and then we had to pivot from in person schools where adults were right there to be able to support students to this virtual platform. Students then went home. They didn't have access to their peers. They didn't have access to adults keeping eyes on them and paying attention to some of the things that were happening. And so what we saw during the pandemic were those rates of anxiety and depression started to skyrocket, in addition to some other things, including social isolation. So our students were isolated from one another. They didn't have peer support. They didn't have adult support on that regular basis. And so we in the mental health industry, as we were getting survey data back, recognized that all of these things were just escalating in the pandemic. And so we knew that we needed to do something differently at that time.
President Greg Crawford
We also get asked the question whether or not the pandemic, you know it's over now, but how will it impact students in the future? So students sort of experienced it some in elementary school, junior high, high school. So when you look forward a few years knowing that these students did get impacted by the pandemic, how will that impact their future?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
So one of the main things that we're seeing is that the students were at home. They were doing that virtual kind of classroom setting for several years, for a couple years, and during that time, they weren't able to practice some of the basic things that we do when we're together. So they weren't able to practice those social skills with their peers. They weren't able to develop things like conflict resolution skills. They weren't able to have conversations, just basic everyday skills that I think we use, and those of us in the workforce now we use in our work, they weren't able to develop those skills. And so a lot of that developmental milestone kinds of things didn't happen for them, and I think coupled with students, were then not exposed. So many of them, just on that medical side of it, weren't exposed to some of those illnesses to build up immune systems. And so we're seeing a lot of kids sick now and out of school now that we're back into school sessions, and so they're missing out on class time. I think there's a lot of ways that we're seeing the pandemic and that pulling back from in person really impacting students.
President Greg Crawford
How can schools implement practices that both acknowledge students experiences and also foster resilience in the classroom?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
So one of the main things that we do in working with our schools here at the School-Based Center of Excellence is to talk about building a strong foundation on which schools are doing this work. And so for us, we talk about implementing a student assistance program model, which, if you think about building a house, you have that strong foundation. Everything that comes after that is able to work really well. So our Student Assistance Program Model is a comprehensive model. It is something that looks at students from the very beginning of maybe there is just little things going on in their life, but they might need support, but not necessarily elevating it to a concern, supports that can do that, building skills, building resiliency, building those social-emotional learning kinds of things. All the way to in the middle of that continuum, if there Are students that are starting to have emerging problems, we help schools bring in services and supports and think about how to support those students all the way through the end of that continuum for students that are experiencing full blown mental health concerns and connecting them to either in the school or external school mental health people that can support them and to provide them with those whether it's treatment or other kinds of services.
President Greg Crawford
Yeah. So for educators and K-12 folks that when they're thinking about how they could implement such a model, a school-based assistance model, and they can certainly come to you and our program here at Miami University, but how might you sort of recommend they get started if they're interested in pursuing something like this?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Yes. So one way, so we have resources that are available to them and they can walk through we have a very evidence based model. So that evidence based model will give them the steps that they would need. What we encourage schools to do, many of them already have teams in place that are addressing a variety of student needs. And the number one thing they will tell us is we don't want to do another thing. It's too much. There's too much stress already at a school. Please don't give us another thing to do. We don't want to add on. So what we tell them is, take a look at what you already have existing look at the teams that are available that support students. Look at the roles if you have mental health professionals and other behavioral health professionals who support your school, look at what administrators may do if they have regular meetings with their staff, they could put mental health or student concerns as an agenda item on that meeting. So start integrating all of these conversations, all of these services and supports into what's already in the school setting, so that it becomes a regular part of their culture, a regular part of their conversation, and that it's not an add on, but it's part of a comprehensive system.
President Greg Crawford
So when we talk about students in higher ed, we often talk about the holistic education here at Miami University, and put the focus on the whole student. Well, I know in your work with K through 12, you also highlight the importance of the comprehensive whole child approach. Could you tell us a little bit about that and how you practice that?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Right. And actually, I'll talk a little bit too about how we do this with our staff as well, because we've expanded our thinking about this whole child approach to include everyone. But really what we know is that our students in that academic setting, if they're not able to concentrate because they have a mental health concern, they're not going to be able to do well academically. That's true of physical kinds of concerns. That's true if they have something at home, that is if there's trauma happening in the background, if they're experiencing any kind of violence in their home setting. If there's other things going on, they're not going to be able to be successful academically. And for our schools, that's one of the most important things, that's their vision and their mission is to help our students become successful academically. So really, what we encourage is we encourage people to take a look at all of the different factors, all of the different things that students may be experiencing. Look at their environment holistically, so their home environment, their community environment, their school environment, and really think about how all of these factors may play into the experience that they're having within the school setting, and then implementing again across that continuum, services and supports and conversations build awareness of these different things, so that our students have everything they need to be successful in all areas of their life, where we've also shifted, and where Ohio has done a really nice job, is thinking about all of the staff that are supporting them as well have their own mental health and well being, and if they're not coming to work in a place where they feel supported, where they feel like they have the tools and the resources to teach our students well, the stress starts to build up. Our educators start feeling burnt out, and then we know that our students are not going to benefit from that. And so here in Ohio, we've actually implemented a staff wellness framework as well, so that our staff are really paying attention to their own well being and their collective well being as an organization, so that together, all of these efforts will really put us in the best place to serve our students and the adults.
President Greg Crawford
When you think about what we're doing at Miami with research, we're always talking about transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary. We're trying to put teams together with all different types of expertise to solve big problems. Your team includes experts from many disciplines as well, from social work to psychology and education. How does this interdisciplinary collaboration enrich the work you're doing today?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Yeah, we do have a lot of different groups who we collaborate with. So here at Miami, we collaborate with the psychology department. We collaborate with our school psychology department, the social work department, the counseling programs, which are kind of the obvious areas for us in mental health, and that has been really invaluable, bringing all of those different perspectives so that we do think about services and supports from that comprehensive lens. The other piece that we're starting to do is to think more innovatively about who haven't we brought to the table that could really benefit the work that we're doing. And so we're starting to think about, should we be collaborating with people in the business school? Should we be collaborating with people who are doing these innovative technologies, artificial intelligence? AI has become a really important part of the school mental health landscape. There are different ways that we're seeing AI support, doing surveys and providing reports to our schools in a really rapid way and using data and analyzing that data in a way that they can help students. So I think for us, thinking about innovative and multidisciplinary kinds of approaches help us get to that more innovative solution to the mental health crisis. Historically, we as a culture will bring in the school psychologist or the school social worker to serve the student on a one on one basis, if there's a concern, and those are wonderful things. We do need our students to have access to those professionals. What we haven't done a great job, and what we're starting to really pivot toward are those more innovative approaches, so that we're getting at some of that systemic effort and really changing the landscape of school mental health in our culture,
President Greg Crawford
The AI is interesting from the perspective that it's helping you do your job. Are there platforms in AI that are coming that'll actually sort of interact directly with students and help them with their own mental health?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
So one of the really innovative things that we're piloting right now with some of our schools across the state, is this AI platform, where it is a suicide prevention platform, so students can do interviews with staff, very similarly to how you and I are talking right now. And so the AI will pay attention to the conversation, and it's trained to pull out key words that may indicate that a student is having suicidal ideation or that there may be risk factors for those kinds of things, and then that AI tool can alert the counselor or the school psychologist of that, and then the school psychologist now has this tool at their disposal to really dig in deeper and do that assessment to ensure that we're not allowing any of our students to fall through the cracks, and we're really paying attention to it.
President Greg Crawford
Oh, that's, that's great. So you've been very successful at getting grant funding and helping support the various programs that you're working on. I love to hear sort of how that's helping you sort of move forward and advance all these programs, and how it's advancing students as well.
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
So one of the wonderful things, I guess, if you could say about the pandemic was that it did kind of shine a light on the school mental health crisis. So we recognized, as a culture, that those those statistics were skyrocketing, anxiety, depression, social isolation, were all going up, and we knew that we needed to do something about that, and so at a federal and a state level, what we saw our leaders doing was really funneling the resources and a lot of funding resources into those efforts. So we were fortunate to be part of several of the COVID Relief dollar funding opportunities, and our center was tapped to then bring in with that funding mechanism to support us this whole Ohio School Wellness Initiative where we were able to build those frameworks that I talked about, it was during those efforts that we'd built our Student Assistance Program Model and our Staff Wellness Framework, and we also were able, with those COVID Relief dollars, to pilot those models in 80 schools across the state, and it was really important for us to pilot it in a whole variety of different settings, so that we had representation, a very diverse representation, of the types of schools that are educating our students in Ohio. That opportunity gave us a chance to create these really important models for Ohio, and then also gather some lessons learned. And so what we're doing now is we're modifying and revising based on those lessons learned so that we can improve our models. And we're piloting a new program also called our Behavioral Health and Wellness Coordinator Model, because we've recognized with that initial amount of funding that we had where we built the models that it wasn't enough just to hand them over to people. Our staff and our administrators in the school setting kept saying to us, it's great that you're giving us these resources, but I, as the school principal can't do this all myself, or I as the school psychologist, I can't do all of this by myself. And so we recognized that we needed to bring people power to bear. And so the the next round of funding, the state of Ohio actually provided us with funding to bring a Behavioral Health and Wellness Coordinator Model into Ohio. We identified 14 schools in the state, and we brought in these coordinators who were non-direct service coordinators, and their job was to coordinate all the other services to bring in those direct service providers for the schools. So they did that, and in our pilot year, when we had those 14 behavioral health and wellness coordinators collectively in their 14 schools, brought in $4.8 million worth of services that otherwise would not have been in those schools. So if you divide that out by. 14 schools, it's roughly $340,000 per school of service that otherwise would not have been there. So again, we're seeing this, this tremendous return on investment, and we're seeing that our students now have access to services and supports that they otherwise would not have had.
President Greg Crawford
Oh, that's fantastic. And is there an example, or some a memory that you have where you've really made a big impact that really sticks with you and your career, that you could share with the audience.
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
We've had so many stories, and it's one of my favorite parts of my job, is school communities and their partners will come to us and they'll share these amazing stories. So there's so many of them. So right now, we're working with the school, and they are. I'm going to bring them up because they're having success both on the student and the staff side. And so what they've done in their school is been very intentional about listening to student voice, listening to what their staff need. And a lot of the concern had been things like the burnout among staff, the stress level of their students. And so what they did is they actually created physical spaces in their building for both the students and the staff. And so if a student in a classroom setting is feeling like they're overwhelmed or they're not able to do what they need to do academically, and they just need to kind of take a break or tap out for a minute, there's a space where they can go. And in this space are tools and resources, things that can help them re-regulate, so get their brain back in a place where it's able to focus on the academic lesson or to bring down the physiological responses that they're having. So to help their stress level go down, they've done a similar thing for their staff. They actually use this room in a really innovative way, and they're tracking outcomes, and so it's been exciting to watch the success that they're having. But what they do is they actually take physiological measurements of their staff, so maybe their pulse rate and other kinds of things before they walk into the room. So they've got a pre measure. And again, this is K-12 setting. This isn't higher ed so it's just so exciting to see this happening in a K-12 setting, but they've got this baseline pre-measurement. And then their staff go into the room, and they interact with the tools that are in the room. Again, these are tools that can regulate them. It can bring down their stress level all kinds of different things, and they can choose the one that's meaningful for them in that moment. And then at the end of their time in that room, they come back out and they do another measurement. And so they're able to see that pre post of whether this room is making a difference, and almost without exception, the school is finding that staff that go into the room, when they come out of the room, they're in a much better place to teach. The other part that's really exciting about this school is they're allowing the staff to say to each other, hey, I need support right now. And so before they go into the room, they can call out to someone in the building to say, can you come support my classroom? Can you come take over whatever it is that I need to be doing right now so I can have five minutes or 10 minutes to do this thing. And they're finding that that culture, that extra five minutes of jumping in for someone else, is translating to a whole lot of extra time to teach in the classroom. Because now the staff is regulated, the students are staying regulated, and they're staying on task longer and for this extended period of time.
President Greg Crawford
Let's pivot to the big picture. So what do you believe the future holds for school based mental health programs?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
So I think what I've seen in my career is this change from identifying what the problems may be. So I remember early in my career, bullying was a problem that came up quite a bit, and we would say, Okay, here's a bullying prevention program. This will solve the problem. And it did. It solved that problem. But what we found pretty quickly was that while bullying was being addressed, there was still a multitude of other things that were going on. And so we started pivoting into that comprehensive framework, where what we do now is really focus on building the foundation, recognizing that all these different things can fit into the foundation. But because we have this foundation, we're paying attention very intentionally to everything, as opposed to one thing at a time. And so that bullying prevention program could fit very nicely into that school setting, while also, if students have the need for communication skill training, a program like that could fit in, or if staff need burnout reduction, they can have mindfulness training, or other kinds of things that are happening. So what we're doing is building that foundation, seeing that huge success with that and I'm imagining that many of our schools are going to start pivoting in that direction, where focusing on that foundation so that we're getting to that thriving area is going to be the important part, rather than just a simple solution for a simple project, but then iterating that over and over again and missing things. So I think that's probably the future of K -12 school mental health.
President Greg Crawford
Wow. So when you think about planning, we often talk about this future back concept, where we think out 15, 20, years, then we sort of say, how do we prepare ourselves today for that future? And when you think about school based mental health, and you think about the trends and the forecasts of what you're seeing sort of in your data and so forth, what do you see as things that we'll be preparing for today that'll be useful in the next 5, 10, 15 years?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Yeah, there's actually two parts to that, that I see workforce development is a part, and I'll talk about that in just a minute. I think with the schools, I think thinking about in that long like, if you have an administrator and they're thinking about, What does my school look like in 10 years? That's the way that you can start to build that foundation. So you you have this foundation, this comprehensive program that's supporting the student and staff, mental health and well being. It's inclusive of all of the other things, including health and the academic pieces, all of that. So that administrator can start to say, I have all of these different areas that are needs, and there's gaps here and here, and we've got all of these other things covered. And so over time, I'm going to really be intentional about filling those gaps. And then if some of these other things that already have programs or strategies in place, but things change and now we have to fill those gaps, again, they're able to be really intentional because they have a blueprint, and they're looking at it from this collective approach, as opposed to, again, that individual or isolated approach. So I think that's where I'm seeing schools creating that blueprint, having that plan, really having a strategic and systematic model to look at, and then being really collaborative. We encourage our school communities to be really collaborative with all the partners that are around them, so bringing in anyone in that community that could provide a beneficial service or support, and then having open conversations about, where are the gaps still, and can they those community providers start building those as well. And I think over time, if we have our school communities really engaged in that kind of strategic model, we're going to see 5, 10 years later, they're going to have things in place for students and staff to thrive. And if something kind of pivots away for a little bit, you have the ability, and you have the teams in place to bring that to fruition. Again, I think on the pre-side, where Miami really can come into play in other universities, is that our workforce development piece is crucial. So we're finding that we have these mental health concerns in our school setting, and we are also finding that the students that are going into these mental health fields may or may not have the skills they need to address them. We're also finding that our education field, they're training our educators to be wonderful in their academic areas, but what we also need to do is really focus on that whole child, so they're they're able to address the mental health or the other kinds of needs that our students are having. So we have a lot of funding, I think, right now, heading in that direction of workforce development, so that we're training our pre-service students, who are will very shortly be going out into those service jobs to have the skills and the tools and the resources and the collaborations necessary to really do the work at the very best that we as a culture can do that work.
President Greg Crawford
The workforce issue, when you read the newspapers, you know, there's a shortage, and you know, this is a very in demand sort of occupation. And can you say a little bit about the shortages? Maybe in Ohio, that's real close to home for all of us here.
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Yeah, so we're seeing it on both the education side, with our teachers and our administrators, and on our mental health side, so with our school psychologists and counselors and social workers, etc. I think we're also identifying burnout and stress were huge triggers for people leaving. What can we do? What can we put in place to help reduce those burnout or those stress reactions? And I think that's a crucial part of this comprehensive model. And really, I think Ohio truly has done well in bringing in the staff wellness side. There's a lot of talk about the student wellness rightfully so. Students need to be well to do well in their academic settings, but we often failed to think about the adults. And so I do think Ohio is innovative in that approach, and I think that's going to help us in the long run as well. That's great.
President Greg Crawford
And so we heard about your background earlier, and I suspect there's high school students listening. There's also Miami University students listening to this podcast. But talk about some pathways to get involved after you go to college and graduate, what do you have to study? What kind of classes should you take? And how could you get involved if this is a career you want to pursue?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Yeah, so this is a human-centered kind of career. So I think there are a lot of opportunities that students can take where they're in those helping kinds of areas. So certainly the mental health field is one of them. I think education is an area where a lot of our students may find that they're able to help a lot. In our communities, too, we talk a lot with coalitions and other partners who are kind of on on the edges of our school. They're there and a vailable and providing strong support. And so students may want to consider, can they do some of those grassroot kinds of things, building coalitions or building strong community momentum in local areas? I think another huge area is policy and advocacy. So are students that have interest in really how policies can change the fabric of what we do and be supportive in that way, those could be career areas for them as well. And then advocacy, just any kind of advocacy, work that will advocate for things to help students and staff thrive could be beneficial. So there's a variety of different ways to do that. Many of our businesses, too, have a lot of philanthropic kinds of desire. They want to help. So a business may be an area, if a student can join in those kinds of communities, and they're in the business areas and really work in the philanthropic wings of businesses. So I can think of a whole variety of different ways that students can get involved in this kind of work, because in all reality, everyone plays a role in students and staff thriving, in adults and students having the best experience that they can possibly have. And I think for our team, it's been really crucial to help people understand that it isn't just a mental health professional sitting down with a student in a counseling session, but that day to day, everyone plays a role. Everyone can be supportive, everyone can do these small, tangible, actionable things to support mental health and well being and support thriving
President Greg Crawford
Well, thank you so much, Cricket. This conversation has been very valuable for the future of higher education society, and I appreciate you taking the time to share your expertise with us today. Thank you so much for being with us.
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Thank you so much for having me. I love the opportunity to share this. Clearly, I'm passionate about it, and it's obvious you are as well. And I hope all of your listeners are passionate, and together, we can make a difference.
President Greg Crawford
That was a fantastic conversation with Dr. Cricket Meehan, thanks for listening to this episode of "In Such a Place" from Miami University. Stay tuned for more great episodes with more great guests wherever podcasts are found.
Hello. I'm Greg Crawford, president of Miami University, and welcome to "In Such a Place." The podcast where we explore the future of higher education and the vital role colleges and universities play in shaping our world. Today, we're with Dr. Cricket Meehan, the executive director of the School-Based Center of Excellence for Prevention and Early Intervention and associate director of the Center for the Study and Support of Children and Families of the Incarcerated in the Department of Psychology here at Miami University, Her work focuses on addressing non-academic barriers to learning for K-12 students, through partnerships, advocacy, training, and bridging the gap between academic research and practical mental health solutions. Welcome to the podcast, Cricket. We're so glad to have you here today.
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Thank you for having me. It is my pleasure to be here.
President Greg Crawford
First question for you: The pandemic seemed to elevate mental health issues in schools. And how have you seen the scope of mental health challenges evolve since then? And what are the most urgent concerns that you see facing students and educators today?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
So even before the pandemic, we knew that mental health concerns affected approximately one in five of our young people, so about 20% and those students were experiencing a whole range of things like anxiety and depression. When the pandemic hit, and then we had to pivot from in person schools where adults were right there to be able to support students to this virtual platform. Students then went home. They didn't have access to their peers. They didn't have access to adults keeping eyes on them and paying attention to some of the things that were happening. And so what we saw during the pandemic were those rates of anxiety and depression started to skyrocket, in addition to some other things, including social isolation. So our students were isolated from one another. They didn't have peer support. They didn't have adult support on that regular basis. And so we in the mental health industry, as we were getting survey data back, recognized that all of these things were just escalating in the pandemic. And so we knew that we needed to do something differently at that time.
President Greg Crawford
We also get asked the question whether or not the pandemic, you know it's over now, but how will it impact students in the future? So students sort of experienced it some in elementary school, junior high, high school. So when you look forward a few years knowing that these students did get impacted by the pandemic, how will that impact their future?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
So one of the main things that we're seeing is that the students were at home. They were doing that virtual kind of classroom setting for several years, for a couple years, and during that time, they weren't able to practice some of the basic things that we do when we're together. So they weren't able to practice those social skills with their peers. They weren't able to develop things like conflict resolution skills. They weren't able to have conversations, just basic everyday skills that I think we use, and those of us in the workforce now we use in our work, they weren't able to develop those skills. And so a lot of that developmental milestone kinds of things didn't happen for them, and I think coupled with students, were then not exposed. So many of them, just on that medical side of it, weren't exposed to some of those illnesses to build up immune systems. And so we're seeing a lot of kids sick now and out of school now that we're back into school sessions, and so they're missing out on class time. I think there's a lot of ways that we're seeing the pandemic and that pulling back from in person really impacting students.
President Greg Crawford
How can schools implement practices that both acknowledge students experiences and also foster resilience in the classroom?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
So one of the main things that we do in working with our schools here at the School-Based Center of Excellence is to talk about building a strong foundation on which schools are doing this work. And so for us, we talk about implementing a student assistance program model, which, if you think about building a house, you have that strong foundation. Everything that comes after that is able to work really well. So our Student Assistance Program Model is a comprehensive model. It is something that looks at students from the very beginning of maybe there is just little things going on in their life, but they might need support, but not necessarily elevating it to a concern, supports that can do that, building skills, building resiliency, building those social-emotional learning kinds of things. All the way to in the middle of that continuum, if there Are students that are starting to have emerging problems, we help schools bring in services and supports and think about how to support those students all the way through the end of that continuum for students that are experiencing full blown mental health concerns and connecting them to either in the school or external school mental health people that can support them and to provide them with those whether it's treatment or other kinds of services.
President Greg Crawford
Yeah. So for educators and K-12 folks that when they're thinking about how they could implement such a model, a school-based assistance model, and they can certainly come to you and our program here at Miami University, but how might you sort of recommend they get started if they're interested in pursuing something like this?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Yes. So one way, so we have resources that are available to them and they can walk through we have a very evidence based model. So that evidence based model will give them the steps that they would need. What we encourage schools to do, many of them already have teams in place that are addressing a variety of student needs. And the number one thing they will tell us is we don't want to do another thing. It's too much. There's too much stress already at a school. Please don't give us another thing to do. We don't want to add on. So what we tell them is, take a look at what you already have existing look at the teams that are available that support students. Look at the roles if you have mental health professionals and other behavioral health professionals who support your school, look at what administrators may do if they have regular meetings with their staff, they could put mental health or student concerns as an agenda item on that meeting. So start integrating all of these conversations, all of these services and supports into what's already in the school setting, so that it becomes a regular part of their culture, a regular part of their conversation, and that it's not an add on, but it's part of a comprehensive system.
President Greg Crawford
So when we talk about students in higher ed, we often talk about the holistic education here at Miami University, and put the focus on the whole student. Well, I know in your work with K through 12, you also highlight the importance of the comprehensive whole child approach. Could you tell us a little bit about that and how you practice that?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Right. And actually, I'll talk a little bit too about how we do this with our staff as well, because we've expanded our thinking about this whole child approach to include everyone. But really what we know is that our students in that academic setting, if they're not able to concentrate because they have a mental health concern, they're not going to be able to do well academically. That's true of physical kinds of concerns. That's true if they have something at home, that is if there's trauma happening in the background, if they're experiencing any kind of violence in their home setting. If there's other things going on, they're not going to be able to be successful academically. And for our schools, that's one of the most important things, that's their vision and their mission is to help our students become successful academically. So really, what we encourage is we encourage people to take a look at all of the different factors, all of the different things that students may be experiencing. Look at their environment holistically, so their home environment, their community environment, their school environment, and really think about how all of these factors may play into the experience that they're having within the school setting, and then implementing again across that continuum, services and supports and conversations build awareness of these different things, so that our students have everything they need to be successful in all areas of their life, where we've also shifted, and where Ohio has done a really nice job, is thinking about all of the staff that are supporting them as well have their own mental health and well being, and if they're not coming to work in a place where they feel supported, where they feel like they have the tools and the resources to teach our students well, the stress starts to build up. Our educators start feeling burnt out, and then we know that our students are not going to benefit from that. And so here in Ohio, we've actually implemented a staff wellness framework as well, so that our staff are really paying attention to their own well being and their collective well being as an organization, so that together, all of these efforts will really put us in the best place to serve our students and the adults.
President Greg Crawford
When you think about what we're doing at Miami with research, we're always talking about transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary. We're trying to put teams together with all different types of expertise to solve big problems. Your team includes experts from many disciplines as well, from social work to psychology and education. How does this interdisciplinary collaboration enrich the work you're doing today?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Yeah, we do have a lot of different groups who we collaborate with. So here at Miami, we collaborate with the psychology department. We collaborate with our school psychology department, the social work department, the counseling programs, which are kind of the obvious areas for us in mental health, and that has been really invaluable, bringing all of those different perspectives so that we do think about services and supports from that comprehensive lens. The other piece that we're starting to do is to think more innovatively about who haven't we brought to the table that could really benefit the work that we're doing. And so we're starting to think about, should we be collaborating with people in the business school? Should we be collaborating with people who are doing these innovative technologies, artificial intelligence? AI has become a really important part of the school mental health landscape. There are different ways that we're seeing AI support, doing surveys and providing reports to our schools in a really rapid way and using data and analyzing that data in a way that they can help students. So I think for us, thinking about innovative and multidisciplinary kinds of approaches help us get to that more innovative solution to the mental health crisis. Historically, we as a culture will bring in the school psychologist or the school social worker to serve the student on a one on one basis, if there's a concern, and those are wonderful things. We do need our students to have access to those professionals. What we haven't done a great job, and what we're starting to really pivot toward are those more innovative approaches, so that we're getting at some of that systemic effort and really changing the landscape of school mental health in our culture,
President Greg Crawford
The AI is interesting from the perspective that it's helping you do your job. Are there platforms in AI that are coming that'll actually sort of interact directly with students and help them with their own mental health?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
So one of the really innovative things that we're piloting right now with some of our schools across the state, is this AI platform, where it is a suicide prevention platform, so students can do interviews with staff, very similarly to how you and I are talking right now. And so the AI will pay attention to the conversation, and it's trained to pull out key words that may indicate that a student is having suicidal ideation or that there may be risk factors for those kinds of things, and then that AI tool can alert the counselor or the school psychologist of that, and then the school psychologist now has this tool at their disposal to really dig in deeper and do that assessment to ensure that we're not allowing any of our students to fall through the cracks, and we're really paying attention to it.
President Greg Crawford
Oh, that's, that's great. So you've been very successful at getting grant funding and helping support the various programs that you're working on. I love to hear sort of how that's helping you sort of move forward and advance all these programs, and how it's advancing students as well.
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
So one of the wonderful things, I guess, if you could say about the pandemic was that it did kind of shine a light on the school mental health crisis. So we recognized, as a culture, that those those statistics were skyrocketing, anxiety, depression, social isolation, were all going up, and we knew that we needed to do something about that, and so at a federal and a state level, what we saw our leaders doing was really funneling the resources and a lot of funding resources into those efforts. So we were fortunate to be part of several of the COVID Relief dollar funding opportunities, and our center was tapped to then bring in with that funding mechanism to support us this whole Ohio School Wellness Initiative where we were able to build those frameworks that I talked about, it was during those efforts that we'd built our Student Assistance Program Model and our Staff Wellness Framework, and we also were able, with those COVID Relief dollars, to pilot those models in 80 schools across the state, and it was really important for us to pilot it in a whole variety of different settings, so that we had representation, a very diverse representation, of the types of schools that are educating our students in Ohio. That opportunity gave us a chance to create these really important models for Ohio, and then also gather some lessons learned. And so what we're doing now is we're modifying and revising based on those lessons learned so that we can improve our models. And we're piloting a new program also called our Behavioral Health and Wellness Coordinator Model, because we've recognized with that initial amount of funding that we had where we built the models that it wasn't enough just to hand them over to people. Our staff and our administrators in the school setting kept saying to us, it's great that you're giving us these resources, but I, as the school principal can't do this all myself, or I as the school psychologist, I can't do all of this by myself. And so we recognized that we needed to bring people power to bear. And so the the next round of funding, the state of Ohio actually provided us with funding to bring a Behavioral Health and Wellness Coordinator Model into Ohio. We identified 14 schools in the state, and we brought in these coordinators who were non-direct service coordinators, and their job was to coordinate all the other services to bring in those direct service providers for the schools. So they did that, and in our pilot year, when we had those 14 behavioral health and wellness coordinators collectively in their 14 schools, brought in $4.8 million worth of services that otherwise would not have been in those schools. So if you divide that out by. 14 schools, it's roughly $340,000 per school of service that otherwise would not have been there. So again, we're seeing this, this tremendous return on investment, and we're seeing that our students now have access to services and supports that they otherwise would not have had.
President Greg Crawford
Oh, that's fantastic. And is there an example, or some a memory that you have where you've really made a big impact that really sticks with you and your career, that you could share with the audience.
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
We've had so many stories, and it's one of my favorite parts of my job, is school communities and their partners will come to us and they'll share these amazing stories. So there's so many of them. So right now, we're working with the school, and they are. I'm going to bring them up because they're having success both on the student and the staff side. And so what they've done in their school is been very intentional about listening to student voice, listening to what their staff need. And a lot of the concern had been things like the burnout among staff, the stress level of their students. And so what they did is they actually created physical spaces in their building for both the students and the staff. And so if a student in a classroom setting is feeling like they're overwhelmed or they're not able to do what they need to do academically, and they just need to kind of take a break or tap out for a minute, there's a space where they can go. And in this space are tools and resources, things that can help them re-regulate, so get their brain back in a place where it's able to focus on the academic lesson or to bring down the physiological responses that they're having. So to help their stress level go down, they've done a similar thing for their staff. They actually use this room in a really innovative way, and they're tracking outcomes, and so it's been exciting to watch the success that they're having. But what they do is they actually take physiological measurements of their staff, so maybe their pulse rate and other kinds of things before they walk into the room. So they've got a pre measure. And again, this is K-12 setting. This isn't higher ed so it's just so exciting to see this happening in a K-12 setting, but they've got this baseline pre-measurement. And then their staff go into the room, and they interact with the tools that are in the room. Again, these are tools that can regulate them. It can bring down their stress level all kinds of different things, and they can choose the one that's meaningful for them in that moment. And then at the end of their time in that room, they come back out and they do another measurement. And so they're able to see that pre post of whether this room is making a difference, and almost without exception, the school is finding that staff that go into the room, when they come out of the room, they're in a much better place to teach. The other part that's really exciting about this school is they're allowing the staff to say to each other, hey, I need support right now. And so before they go into the room, they can call out to someone in the building to say, can you come support my classroom? Can you come take over whatever it is that I need to be doing right now so I can have five minutes or 10 minutes to do this thing. And they're finding that that culture, that extra five minutes of jumping in for someone else, is translating to a whole lot of extra time to teach in the classroom. Because now the staff is regulated, the students are staying regulated, and they're staying on task longer and for this extended period of time.
President Greg Crawford
Let's pivot to the big picture. So what do you believe the future holds for school based mental health programs?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
So I think what I've seen in my career is this change from identifying what the problems may be. So I remember early in my career, bullying was a problem that came up quite a bit, and we would say, Okay, here's a bullying prevention program. This will solve the problem. And it did. It solved that problem. But what we found pretty quickly was that while bullying was being addressed, there was still a multitude of other things that were going on. And so we started pivoting into that comprehensive framework, where what we do now is really focus on building the foundation, recognizing that all these different things can fit into the foundation. But because we have this foundation, we're paying attention very intentionally to everything, as opposed to one thing at a time. And so that bullying prevention program could fit very nicely into that school setting, while also, if students have the need for communication skill training, a program like that could fit in, or if staff need burnout reduction, they can have mindfulness training, or other kinds of things that are happening. So what we're doing is building that foundation, seeing that huge success with that and I'm imagining that many of our schools are going to start pivoting in that direction, where focusing on that foundation so that we're getting to that thriving area is going to be the important part, rather than just a simple solution for a simple project, but then iterating that over and over again and missing things. So I think that's probably the future of K -12 school mental health.
President Greg Crawford
Wow. So when you think about planning, we often talk about this future back concept, where we think out 15, 20, years, then we sort of say, how do we prepare ourselves today for that future? And when you think about school based mental health, and you think about the trends and the forecasts of what you're seeing sort of in your data and so forth, what do you see as things that we'll be preparing for today that'll be useful in the next 5, 10, 15 years?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Yeah, there's actually two parts to that, that I see workforce development is a part, and I'll talk about that in just a minute. I think with the schools, I think thinking about in that long like, if you have an administrator and they're thinking about, What does my school look like in 10 years? That's the way that you can start to build that foundation. So you you have this foundation, this comprehensive program that's supporting the student and staff, mental health and well being. It's inclusive of all of the other things, including health and the academic pieces, all of that. So that administrator can start to say, I have all of these different areas that are needs, and there's gaps here and here, and we've got all of these other things covered. And so over time, I'm going to really be intentional about filling those gaps. And then if some of these other things that already have programs or strategies in place, but things change and now we have to fill those gaps, again, they're able to be really intentional because they have a blueprint, and they're looking at it from this collective approach, as opposed to, again, that individual or isolated approach. So I think that's where I'm seeing schools creating that blueprint, having that plan, really having a strategic and systematic model to look at, and then being really collaborative. We encourage our school communities to be really collaborative with all the partners that are around them, so bringing in anyone in that community that could provide a beneficial service or support, and then having open conversations about, where are the gaps still, and can they those community providers start building those as well. And I think over time, if we have our school communities really engaged in that kind of strategic model, we're going to see 5, 10 years later, they're going to have things in place for students and staff to thrive. And if something kind of pivots away for a little bit, you have the ability, and you have the teams in place to bring that to fruition. Again, I think on the pre-side, where Miami really can come into play in other universities, is that our workforce development piece is crucial. So we're finding that we have these mental health concerns in our school setting, and we are also finding that the students that are going into these mental health fields may or may not have the skills they need to address them. We're also finding that our education field, they're training our educators to be wonderful in their academic areas, but what we also need to do is really focus on that whole child, so they're they're able to address the mental health or the other kinds of needs that our students are having. So we have a lot of funding, I think, right now, heading in that direction of workforce development, so that we're training our pre-service students, who are will very shortly be going out into those service jobs to have the skills and the tools and the resources and the collaborations necessary to really do the work at the very best that we as a culture can do that work.
President Greg Crawford
The workforce issue, when you read the newspapers, you know, there's a shortage, and you know, this is a very in demand sort of occupation. And can you say a little bit about the shortages? Maybe in Ohio, that's real close to home for all of us here.
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Yeah, so we're seeing it on both the education side, with our teachers and our administrators, and on our mental health side, so with our school psychologists and counselors and social workers, etc. I think we're also identifying burnout and stress were huge triggers for people leaving. What can we do? What can we put in place to help reduce those burnout or those stress reactions? And I think that's a crucial part of this comprehensive model. And really, I think Ohio truly has done well in bringing in the staff wellness side. There's a lot of talk about the student wellness rightfully so. Students need to be well to do well in their academic settings, but we often failed to think about the adults. And so I do think Ohio is innovative in that approach, and I think that's going to help us in the long run as well. That's great.
President Greg Crawford
And so we heard about your background earlier, and I suspect there's high school students listening. There's also Miami University students listening to this podcast. But talk about some pathways to get involved after you go to college and graduate, what do you have to study? What kind of classes should you take? And how could you get involved if this is a career you want to pursue?
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Yeah, so this is a human-centered kind of career. So I think there are a lot of opportunities that students can take where they're in those helping kinds of areas. So certainly the mental health field is one of them. I think education is an area where a lot of our students may find that they're able to help a lot. In our communities, too, we talk a lot with coalitions and other partners who are kind of on on the edges of our school. They're there and a vailable and providing strong support. And so students may want to consider, can they do some of those grassroot kinds of things, building coalitions or building strong community momentum in local areas? I think another huge area is policy and advocacy. So are students that have interest in really how policies can change the fabric of what we do and be supportive in that way, those could be career areas for them as well. And then advocacy, just any kind of advocacy, work that will advocate for things to help students and staff thrive could be beneficial. So there's a variety of different ways to do that. Many of our businesses, too, have a lot of philanthropic kinds of desire. They want to help. So a business may be an area, if a student can join in those kinds of communities, and they're in the business areas and really work in the philanthropic wings of businesses. So I can think of a whole variety of different ways that students can get involved in this kind of work, because in all reality, everyone plays a role in students and staff thriving, in adults and students having the best experience that they can possibly have. And I think for our team, it's been really crucial to help people understand that it isn't just a mental health professional sitting down with a student in a counseling session, but that day to day, everyone plays a role. Everyone can be supportive, everyone can do these small, tangible, actionable things to support mental health and well being and support thriving
President Greg Crawford
Well, thank you so much, Cricket. This conversation has been very valuable for the future of higher education society, and I appreciate you taking the time to share your expertise with us today. Thank you so much for being with us.
Dr. Dawna "Cricket" Meehan
Thank you so much for having me. I love the opportunity to share this. Clearly, I'm passionate about it, and it's obvious you are as well. And I hope all of your listeners are passionate, and together, we can make a difference.
President Greg Crawford
That was a fantastic conversation with Dr. Cricket Meehan, thanks for listening to this episode of "In Such a Place" from Miami University. Stay tuned for more great episodes with more great guests wherever podcasts are found.
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