WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – The student’s behavior changed after he broke up with his girlfriend. He became withdrawn from friends and family and gave up playing tennis, a sport he loved.
Spiraling into depression, the mock scenario depicted the student leaving a disturbing note in a friends’ locker and for his girlfriend.
This was a scenario outlined for teachers at Cardinal Newman High School. They were learning how to intervene in a potential suicide and spot the signs leading up to it. The training, sponsored by a grant in Palm Beach County, was intended to help their faith-based private school respond to students’ mental health needs.
Teachers learned to spot warning signs, including anxiety, change in behavior, academic performance, and non-verbal changes.
“We are learning from the previous incident that recognizing signs early and reaching out to help students that may be in a crisis is important to defusing any further escalations and a lot of times it is just reaching out to someone that might make a difference,” said Christine Higgins, principal at Cardinal Newman.
Cardinal Newman is one of the first Catholic schools in Palm Beach County to implement mental health training. At the same time, Cardinal and other neighboring Catholic schools are making sure each of their students are nurtured, so they may be able to prevent them from acting out in a destructive way.
“It is important to help students learn to deal with anxiety and distress in a healthy way,” said Terry Fretterd, assistant principal at Cardinal Newman.
Schools across the country are talking about the importance of social and emotional learning. In Florida, the push for better mental health support in schools took on new urgency after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Before the tragedy, the Florida Senate was already contemplating a dedicated funding allocation for mental health. After the shooting, the plan quickly gained momentum and a new state law allocated $69 million for mental health programs in public schools.
Reflecting on recent mass shootings, Rev. David Carr, president of Cardinal Newman High School in West Palm Beach, said many of the students who killed students were former students or students at the schools they attended.
“Everybody has to be more alert and more concerned,” he said.
At the beginning of June, Cardinal Neman officials conducted an all-day training for teachers where they were given different scenarios and taught how to respond in such situations where a student may have escalated in his or her behavior.
Principal Higgins added that in several situations children are impulsive and they don’t realize that an impulsive decision could have lasting effects.
“We want to make sure we are trained and ready to do whatever we need to in situations where children might need our help,” she said.
Another school also paying closer attention to students’ behavior is St. Juliana Catholic School in Palm Beach.
Katie Kervi, principal at St. Juliana Catholic School in Palm Beach, remembers coming across an anguished letter written by a child who was upset.
Immediately, she called staff and the guidance counselor to surround the girl and help her to feel better.
“We really try to care for our kids at a level that you would see or be able to prevent” violence, she said.
When the shooting occurred at Marjory Stoneham Douglas High School on Feb. 14, Kervi, who was out on maternity leave, thought she would receive tons of emails of concern about security from parents.
But to her surprise, she found very few. Many parents wrote to encourage her.
“Parents have a lot of faith in the school and what we are doing,” she said.
