Mental Health 101 set
The media was not allowed to attend the parent meeting at Farragut High School, Thursday, May 4, but the auditorium was at least three-quarters full, said one mother who asked to remain anonymous.
“I was really disappointed,” she said.
But in spite of how the meeting went, a change is coming to FHS. According to Susan Horn, 5th District Knox County Board of Education representative, all students will soon be taking Mental Health 101.
“This was a good beginning conversation,” Horn said about the meeting. “Parents want more information than is possible to distribute in one hour-long meeting.
“I think people were encouraged to hear that Mental Health 101 will be offered to all the students once school starts back in August,” Horn added. “It’s a curriculum offered by the Mental Health Association of East Tennessee. They didn’t talk specifically about how it will be implemented, but said all the students will go through it. Next year will be all students. Then every year with new [students], ninth-graders will go through the curriculum also. A form of that curriculum is covered at Farragut Middle School in their health classes.”
“When [principal] Ryan Siebe spoke, he said that we have one of the best counseling staffs he’s seen,” said Terri Tucker, mother of Farragut Middle and FHS students. “When they know there’s a problem, they work incredibly hard to address the problem, but it’s hard because they don’t always know. He said the number one thing he tells kids is, ‘If you know something, you have to say something.’ The mindset among youth, however, is that they’re often reluctant to say anything because they don’t want to get their friend in trouble. The kids need to realize, though, that we can’t help if we don’t know about a problem.”
Four experts were on the stage to answer parent questions: Scott Ridgway and Amy Dolinsky, representatives of the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network; Ben Harrington, executive director of the Mental Health Association of East Tennessee, and Clovis Stair, psychological services supervisor for Knox County Schools.
“Index cards were handed out to the audience to write questions on,” said the mom who wanted to be anonymous. “Staff helped collect the questions and Susan Horn read about 20 questions that were answered by the people onstage.
“Everybody handed in questions,” she added. “We thought we were going to be heard. They didn’t give us a forum to talk. It was very controlled. It was like a big horse and pony show. I thought it was a dirty trick and I think a lot of people thought the same way. Audience members asked what the school administration is doing to handle this. ‘We have a school policy,’ is what they said, but they didn’t say what the policy was.
“There were some great questions that got applause,” she said. “One read was ‘Would you allow students in an assembly like this one to discuss this?’ We applauded and wanted a good answer. One of the speakers responded, ‘No, we won’t do that because it’s not appropriate to discuss this with kids. I don’t want to make a kid come to an assembly where they didn’t want to be.’ A lot of us couldn’t believe their answers.
“The town hall meeting's purpose was to explain the standard practices used to respond after a student death by suicide and to provide warning signs and community resources,” Ridgway said. “We were trying to clear up and give explanations about why things occurred.
“The question came up in the audience about gathering all the students in the auditorium and talking to them just like we're doing tonight,” Ridgway added. “Not everyone will know the student who died by suicide, and students who mean no disrespect may be sitting there cutting up. People process grief in different ways and some students may be more upset than others. This is why we wouldn't gather everyone in the auditorium, because people here tonight have the choice to be here.
“As far as grief counselors, some people might think they were coming from the outside. But Knox County Schools has a crisis response team that is trained in grief, crisis, suicide prevention and trauma. TSPN is working with the school system during this difficult time and applauds its efforts to work with us to continue the healing process."
