Hilary Ozenbaugh is the lead middle school student support specialist with Communities In Schools (CIS) of Cape Fear. She oversees 10 other middle school specialists working within New Hanover County Schools at D.C. Virgo Preparatory Academy, International School at Gregory, Holly Shelter, Williston, Myrtle Grove, and Trask.
Each CIS professional has a caseload of about 50 students – but Ozenbaugh said the reality is, these CIS specialists work with “way more than that” — and wear many hats in the schools.
“Our roles are similar to school counselors and social workers. We’re there to support the students, teachers, administrators, and families, and we're connecting them with resources,” Ozenbaugh said.
The specialists help students with things like academic work, tutoring, counseling, and providing de-escalation and remediation support when students get into conflicts at school.
Their day starts off happily greeting the kids.
“As soon as the buses get there, the cars arrive there, they’re the first smiling face that they see there, they’re welcomed there. Some of our students have a hard time with coping skills and their behavior, so we do a morning check-in to make sure they're going to start off with a fresh day; we start to set goals in the morning,” Ozenbaugh said.
Dr. Anka Roberto is an assistant professor in the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She also has her own mental health private practice, Holistic Healing, PLLC. She said the presence of caring adults can make the difference for kids who are dealing with hardships.
“Human connection is the solution to healing,” Roberto said.
Kevin Blackburn is the executive director of Kids Making It, a local non-profit that focuses on teaching woodworking and life skills to middle and high school students. Blackburn said they have about 60 kids in their afterschool program — and more recently, through their other program offerings they serve, on average, 1,000 children each year.
Each adult working there can take on a maximum of three students per woodworking session. That’s for safety, and, “it's also just so that our team is really connecting with the kids and that they don't feel like they're getting lost in the shuffle,” Blackburn said.
When the students create items like pens or cutting boards in the shop — it builds their self-confidence.
“Because until that happens, they don't really have the belief in themselves. Sadly, some of the kids don't feel that they're valued or important. And so, we obviously want every kid that walks through the door to feel all those things and more — and feel really nurtured,” Blackburn said.
And the kids who spend time creating their woodworking products even have a chance to earn money. Blackburn said, this year, they’ve paid well over $30,000 to teenagers.
“That’s a record; we’ve never paid that much out,” he said.
Confronting challenges with the kids
The students who attend Kids Making It sometimes overlap with Communities in Schools. They often face challenges with adverse childhood or community experiences, known as ACEs.
“I think that our community has a hard time remembering that our kids are coming in with a lot that's not being talked about. So whether that's trouble at home, or they just watched the news the night before, and it was scary. And they haven't processed that. [...] And our staff gives them a safe space every day to come and just let it out, that's just so important that these kids are able to release whatever they need to before they go learn,” Ozenbaugh said.
Roberto agreed that school and afterschool programs give children and their families valuable human connections.
“It takes a village; parents can't do life on their own with their kids. [...] We're supposed to work and live and thrive in a herd community,” Roberto said.
Korall Gilbert is the lead elementary student support specialist for Communities In Schools. She oversees 11 specialists at Forest Hills Global, Rachel Freeman, Snipes, Alderman, Wrightsboro, Sunset Park, Mary C. Williams, and College Park.
Gilbert said it’s important to meet students where they are — and that if they’re having trouble concentrating, there are strategies in place.
“In the schools that I've been in, the classrooms are required to have a ‘Take a Break’ space. So it's a space where the kids can go and just have a moment, whether it's to draw, to write out what they're feeling, have fidgets, and there's a timer and a prompt, and the teachers are practicing it with them. And it is a part of their routine for when those emotions come up,” Gilbert said.
She added that if the students want to use this space, they can give a hand signal or raise a card, so as to not interrupt classroom instruction or call attention to themselves.
Gilbert said she also likes to share ideas with the families on what they can do at home.
“Okay, when he gets upset, this is what we're doing at school. So if you can teach him that at home, he's getting it in both places,” Gilbert said.
What Gilbert is describing are interventions to help children regulate their feelings, so that they can focus on academics.
“Social-emotional learning is extremely important to our students. Bottom line, it affects them in a positive way. Them learning these lessons isn't doing one negative thing for them. They're walking away with a skill,” Gilbert said.
Researchers say the influence of even one positive mentor can change the trajectory of a kid’s life — and that strongly suggests the adults working at Kids Making It and Communities in Schools can be protective factors against the mental health challenges children are facing.
Incidences of self-harm, youth suicides on the rise
But the obstacles remain for adults working with children who have experienced ACEs.
Tanya DeShields Jordan is the supervisor of elementary school counseling for New Hanover County Schools.
She said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control are now listing suicide as the second leading cause of death for children ages 10 to 17.
“We know these rates are rising, which is alarming and sad,” Jordan said. But added the district has a student safety protocol in which all counselors and social workers are trained. They use the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale to determine how to best respond.
And, according to recently released results of the federal 2021 Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), North Carolina high school students are increasingly showing signs of loneliness, feelings of not being valued, and confirming again, that suicide attempts are increasing.
This data also shows those in the LGBTQIA community have a higher risk for suicide than their heterosexual counterparts.
Ozenbaugh said over the past four years of working with CIS, she had only been part of a protocol like this a few times.
But that's changed.
“It's probably weekly, honestly, that we are having students who are coming in and saying that they want to hurt themselves, or that they don't feel valued,” Ozenbaugh said.
The U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murphy said just last week that youth mental health is the “defining public health crisis of our time.”
Some of the culprits, according to Murphy, are the overuse of social media which can lead to alienation and loneliness.
Ozenbaugh said she also sees this firsthand with her students.
“Social media is tough because your algorithm is real. And it's going to show you whatever you have liked before, and that's not always positive things. That's where our staff thankfully are able to step in and say, ‘Hey, you're loved; we're so happy that you're here,” Ozenbaugh said.
And if the kids are feeling lonely or sad — Ozenbaugh and her staff tell them to come to school anyway.
“If you're staying at home and you're feeling down, we can't help you there as much as we can help you at school [...] And I need you to show up for me too because I can't show up and be there for you every morning if you don't get off that bus,” Ozenbaugh said.
Changing the paradigm of youth mental health: Bring in the family
Roberto said the missing piece to addressing the emerging youth mental health crisis is bringing in family involvement.
“How are we communicating with the children, with the families? And how are we aligning them together? And the other part is, do we meet them where they are?” she said.
And meeting families, where they are, is crucial, she said.
“You always have to make sure that you're helping them with what they are wanting help with. And as a nurse, I think we take the role of — we just want to help and fix,” Roberto said.
She added that a lot of times — with parenting strategies, it’s “more caught than taught.”
“So I can say one thing, but if I'm not doing it, my kid is not following suit. To nurture this beautiful community we live in, let's put money into the people and allow for programs to expand so that we can empower our families,” Roberto said.
Empowering families, according to Roberto, would mean supporting them through things like childcare stipends and food vouchers — and advocating for laws and policies that work to increase the minimum wage and access to healthcare.
Ozenbaugh said the community needs to be empathetic and realize the challenges that exist for some parents.
“If I go through the Dunkin line, like I love my morning coffee and my donut, but that might be somebody's mom who is giving me my coffee before the bell even rings in the morning. So the reality is, these parents are part of our community. And so we need to do what we can to support them so that their children can be successful,” Ozenbaugh said.
Roberto said therapy services for families is important.
“If we're treating the kids, we should also be treating those parents. That's a disservice if that child is in our office weekly, and the parents sit in that waiting room or downstairs or in their car, so treatment should be a family approach. And we don't see that a lot across the spectrum. We just don't,” Roberto said.
Ozenbaugh and Gilbert said they connect their CIS families with therapy a lot, services like Coastal Horizons, the Trauma Institute, and the Carousel Center.
Blackburn of Kids Making It said his organization does this, too.
“We work really closely with our students and their families. So we find out if they have a need for any kind of resource. [It could be] NourishNC, or it could be helping them to pay a bill. It could be that the student would be interested in or benefit from therapy,” Blackburn said.
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