Carrie Arroyo and Mary Zane Nelson

Transcript

Derek Smith:
Hello, and welcome to Baylor Connections, a conversation series with the people shaping our future. Each week, we go in depth with Baylor leaders, professors, and more, discussing important topics in higher education, research, and student life. I'm Derek Smith, and today, we are talking mental health in schools and training those who will support children in schools in Waco ISD and beyond, the way there's no shortage of challenges that can impact a child's mental health, but school districts often face a shortage of qualified mental health professionals to help meet those needs. Baylor researchers in the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work are working to bridge this gap here in Central Texas. Today, we're visiting with Carrie Arroyo, senior lecturer of Social Work and co-principal investigator, and Mary Zane Nelson, co-principal investigator and project director of a project called Partnering for Heart of Texas Mental Health, which last year, was awarded a two and a half million-dollar grant from the Department of Education to partner with Waco ISD and Transformation Waco Schools to prepare future mental health professionals and enhance mental health services in schools here in the Central Texas area.
Well, Mary Zane, Carrie, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Excited to share this work that's going on in the community.

Carrie Arroyo:
Great. We're excited to be here also.

Mary Zane Nelson:
Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having us.

Derek Smith:
Well, let's start off broadly, and Carrie, I'll start with you, and then Mary Zane. What do each of you enjoy about the opportunity, the work you do here at Baylor to partner with local organizations, in this case, Waco ISD and Transformation Waco?

Carrie Arroyo:
So, both of us have transitioned to Baylor and the higher education setting from direct practice, as we would call it in social work, in public school settings. So in our prior work lives, we've worked full-time in schools in Waco, providing interventions for children and families, so being able to partner with our local schools and bring the resources that we've gotten from the Department of Education and from Baylor directly into our schools to increase access to high quality and evidence-based mental health services is really a dream come true. So as an educator of future social workers, being able to pair the work that we do with the schools and in the schools with classroom lessons with my students that I work with, it just really brings things to life. And in social work, one of our competencies is research-informed practice and practice-informed research, and that's exactly what we're getting to do with this project, and it really enriches our students' experiences, both Baylor and Waco ISD students.

Mary Zane Nelson:
Carrie said it all, so I don't really need to say much. I think, yeah, it's just a really good balance of getting to be still involved in schools and getting to be on that side of things, but then also, getting to be at the Baylor side of things, and so getting both benefits and seeing how they can really work together and how it is so important that we partner as to build up Waco together.

Derek Smith:
Yeah. So you both were there working, and you know what the people on the front lines, if you will, need in a lot of ways.

Mary Zane Nelson:
Yeah.

Carrie Arroyo:
For sure.

Derek Smith:
Well, take us inside those needs, if you would, just a little bit. What are the challenges that are facing schools? I know it's not just Waco, but specifically Waco, as we talk about this, when it comes to meeting the mental health needs of their students.

Carrie Arroyo:
Yeah. So our public schools are amazing. They do so much to care for our community, and they carry so much more than their fair share of the load when it comes for providing care for kids and families, excuse me, and families in Waco. And we ask a lot of our schools. I think we all came to really understand that, to a new level during COVID times, right?
They're responsible for not just teaching, reading, writing, and math to our students, which is a huge responsibility, but they're also asked to provide safety in the midst of violence that we've seen taking place in schools. They're asked to provide nutrition and feed our children in the midst of food deserts and lack of access to food and nutritional needs. They're asked to care for the whole child, which oftentimes means finding clothes, eyeglasses, backpacks, locating affordable health care, accessing mental health services, and they're supposed to do all of this, also here in Waco, while facing the threat of potential repercussions if their standardized test scores don't meet the ever-shifting standards set by the state of Texas. So it's a lot to juggle. Every adult in Waco ISD cares about the whole child that we have worked with.
We've had great experiences, and that includes mental health, but we know that time and resources are finite, and mental health is not always easy to assess and adequately treat, right? So it's often misunderstood and mislabeled, which then makes it hard to get the right interventions in place, to help alleviate distress and improve mental, emotional, and behavioral functioning. And research tells us that one in every five students sitting in a classroom have mental health needs. 75 to 80% of youth with mental health needs never receive the treatment that they need.

Derek Smith:
Wow.

Carrie Arroyo:
And of the youth who do receive treatment, 70 to 80% of them receive it in the school setting, so it does increase access whenever we're able to do these partnerships, right? And it's a real challenge that schools face, even more of a challenge with COVID-19 and the impact that that had on children's brains during a time that they are supposed to be learning and building social connections. They weren't able to do that, and we are really having to still recover and build up those skills in them, and those kids become adults, and our community is a better, safer, and healthier place when we intervene as early as possible to provide good, targeted mental health care.

Derek Smith:
Great insights as we visit with Carrie Arroyo and Mary Zane Nelson. And maybe I'm asking an obvious question here, but we have a lot of great mental health professionals in the community. There's plenty who could take their skills into schools and serve, but got to assume there's some very specific needs or skills that we are talking about going into an elementary school that's different from talking to someone in maybe a normal practice setting. What are some of the needs as we think of that, when you think about the professional side, because as we talk for these 20 minutes or so, I know we're talking about meeting school needs and student needs, but also training professionals to meet those?

Mary Zane Nelson:
Yeah. So I think, you're right, it's very different working in a private practice setting, where you have a very thought-out schedule and you have a lot of control over that schedule to say, "Here's what I'm going to take my lunch break. Here's what I'm going to ... I'm only going to see clients at these times." And I think what's different about a school is that a kiddo can have a rough morning at home and come in, and maybe nobody knows that, and then going through the day, and something happens, and it's like all of a sudden, we're in full on meltdown mode, or what we like to say, crisis mode or that type of thing, and so it's not as scheduled, for sure.
And then, I think it does take just a different amount of understanding of how the schools run and kind of all of the things at play, like understanding, "I can't take them out of these classes," "I can't take them at this time," and understanding how all of the pieces of the school work together for the good of the child and the good of the community of the school as well. So I think that's a huge piece of it, and then just also, knowing how to work with kids in a school setting that you might only get 20 minutes with them. You might only get a certain amount of time, and so I think just being flexible and adaptable, and knowing how to kind of use your skills on the fly to both deescalate, but then also building in those clinical modalities, as developmentally appropriate in those types of things, depending on the age group that we're working with. But I do think it's very different than a private practice setting, or even maybe like a children's center that only serves children. It's still different because it's less predictable, maybe is a good word for it.

Derek Smith:
Visiting with Carrie Arroyo and Mary Zane Nelson. So let's talk about this project. You've painted the picture of the needs, and really, opportunities to serve in school districts. So the project as, which is called Partnering for Heart of Texas Mental Health, you earned a two and a half million-dollar grant from the Department of Education, so take us inside that, if you would. What is this, and what is it going to enable you and others to do through it?

Mary Zane Nelson:
Like Carrie said, so many of our kiddos have mental health needs, and even in private practice settings, or even with, I feel like we do have quite a few resources in Waco for mental health needs, but they have long wait lists, or they only take certain insurances, or transportation is an issue of, "When can a parent get off work to pick the kiddo up from school or take them after school?," and those 4:00 appointments are hard to come by and that type of thing, and so, I think, there's three to six-month waiting lists, depending on where you are, and so I think it just gives a real immediate space that a child can get help very quickly, and maybe not ... We're not going to be able to reach all of the kids and support all of the students that we would love to do, but I do think, for sure, it adds another layer of support and a definite safety net within the schools that definitely was a gap beforehand, so ...

Derek Smith:
What about when you think about your students who are interested in this and training them, and you talk about evidence-based research and evidence-based methods. How will this grant enable you to advance those and better serve your own students who'll be serving these students we're talking about?

Carrie Arroyo:
So we have been involved in doing this work for some years before the Department of Education grant came along, but what we are able to do with these dollars ... Basically, there's different programs, different curriculums and things like that, that Mary Zane and I would just sort of drool, like looking at, but we didn't have the resources to be able to engage in those kind of trainings, and access the curriculum and resources. With this grant, we are now able to access some of those best practice trainings. Mary Zane and I are going through the process of becoming certified so that we can train our students, and then our hope is even beyond our students here at Baylor, but to be able to offer that type of training and expertise to other practitioners in the community. So this grant is giving us access to some of those, which we're in the process of kind of learning and being trained in ourselves.
And it's also giving us a new kind of strategic focus on trying to recruit some local Waco residents to enter into this field of school-based mental health. So we have some resources available through the grant, and we are very hopeful that through the partnerships and collaborations with Waco ISD, MCC, Baylor, that all of us kind of working in collaboration can be able to make this Baylor education and mental health training available to more of our local Waco residents. And we also, with that, we like to aim high, but we are trying to also recruit and get some folks trained who are Spanish-speaking mental health providers, because that is a real gap and a lack in Waco, and so we are working on developing trainings in Spanish for people who speak Spanish, who want to be able to serve a population where that is their language of preference or their language of origin, because we know in mental health provision, being able ... It's hard to talk about your feelings and things in any language, and so if we can provide more qualified and certified providers, because we do have a large population of Spanish speakers in Waco and in our Waco schools.

Derek Smith:
This is Baylor Connections. We are visiting with Carrie Arroyo, senior lecturer of Social Work and co-principal investigator, along with Mary Zane Nelson, co-principal investigator and project director of Partnering for Heart of Texas Mental Health, last year awarded a two and a half million-dollar grant from the Department of Education. And let's talk about that idea of recruiting local students to be a part of what the Baylor School of, the School of Social Work is doing here at Baylor, and to get them involved in schools. I think it's obvious that that's a good thing, but take us inside maybe kind of the multiplier effect, if you will, that you see in involving local students in local schools.

Mary Zane Nelson:
Yeah. I mean, I think, yes, like you said, there is a multitude of good reasons, but one thing we know is that oftentimes, students have never seen someone who looks like them in a mental health role, and therefore, they might not feel that they fully understand where they're coming from, and that they may not be able to serve them as well as someone who might have had more similar experiences or background to them, and just like Carrie said, or even language, that's such a huge barrier to be trying to explain our feelings in a language that we're not fully comfortable in. So I think that is really helpful, but also, it just builds up Waco, of people who are already here, and want to stay here, and want to build our community, and want to make it a better and safer place for the students of Waco ISD, and so I think it both benefits the students and the families of Waco ISD, as well as could provide a way for an advanced degree for someone who is local to Waco, who that might not have been an option at a previous time.

Derek Smith:
I think you both have been painting this picture as we've been talking, but, Carrie, I want to ask you specifically, when you think about this two and a half million-dollar grant from the Department of Ed, these federal agencies have a lot of places they can spend their dollars. It's competitive. Why do you think this project, Baylor and Waco, were something they saw as worthy of this magnitude of investment?

Carrie Arroyo:
So we are one of the grantees in a program through the Department of Ed that's called Mental Health Service Professional Demonstration Grant Programs. So we feel like one reason that we stood out, and we're one of the grantees for this funding, was because we already had established relationships with our districts, and that we had support from Waco ISD and local organizations that showed we were ready to get going with this project. So grant projects, especially federal ones, are known to have some red tape that you have to cut through, and we kind of came in with our scissors ready, sharpened, and knew where to cut and get started, and that really has helped put us ahead. And we already had kind of researched evidence-based interventions that we wanted to implement. We had a clear plan.
We didn't have the funding before to do those things, but this grant gave us the funds. We're in the process of implementing it, so we think we were well-positioned and just have a lot of good, strong partnerships and collaborations in our community, and that is one thing that they really look for, that you are not just trying to go it alone, and everybody can have a great idea on their own, but very few with this kind of project can implement it without having collaboration and partnerships. So we're really grateful for the partnerships that we already had and how this has only strengthened those.

Mary Zane Nelson:
Yeah.

Derek Smith:
So you're ready to apply, ready to apply it quickly? Yes.

Mary Zane Nelson:
Yeah.

Carrie Arroyo:
Yes.

Mary Zane Nelson:
Well, and I think too, just to add to that, Carrie, is the district had always really thought our services were valuable, but again, they didn't have funding to expand them or anything, and so I think it was kind of just a magic, a shooting star, that when Carrie found the funding as a way to continue it on all sides, and so the district was like, "Yes, please. How can we support? How can we do that?," and so that was huge, I think. And then, obviously, Baylor has been really supportive too, and just helping us get all the pieces put together, that is all the red tape and all of the things to get everything turned in and submitted, so ...

Derek Smith:
That's great. Well, as we head in the final couple of minutes, Mary Zane, I'll start with you, and then Carrie. So it's been about a year since the grant was announced. What's been taking place since then, and what are you really most excited to see as it goes forward?

Mary Zane Nelson:
Yeah. So I think, like Carrie said, we kind of already had good relationships built with the district. We already had some good things in place, but it's been a great year to implement. We had six interns on three different campuses this year, which has been great. We're hoping next year that we'll have one more campus to add to.
We'll have eight interns next year, and we've started on this training that Carrie referenced earlier as far as getting kind of a certificate for School of Social Work going, and so that will be completed probably over the summer. And I think just in meetings with all the other grantees, I don't want to toot our own horn, because that's not what I'm doing, but just it does kind of feel like we're on track and we're really moving ahead with the goals that we set, and that feels really, really good. And I think we're having good outcomes with the students that we're working with as far as reducing anxiety, reducing depression, helping students who are dealing with suicidality and those type of things, so yeah. I think as far as what's to come is more students being served and more mental health service professionals trained to be able to work with kids in a really clinical important way.

Carrie Arroyo:
I think that we love doing this work. We love working with our Master of Social Work students that are always eager to learn, and they bring an energy to the schools. They bring in this capacity for the schools to stay current on research and best practices, and we are excited to bring that into the schools. We also will be working on developing, and hopefully launching the Certificate Program that Mary Zane mentioned, to increase any social worker who's working in schools if they have a desire to increase their clinical skills and move into doing more mental health-specific services, that we are really excited to get to equip more people and be able to provide that to our community.

Derek Smith:
Well, that's very exciting. It is going to be exciting to see the impact in Waco and in the lives of the students you all serve at Baylor and in the schools. Well, Carrie and Mary Zane, really appreciate you taking the time to share with us today. Thanks so much for joining us on the program.

Carrie Arroyo:
Thanks for having us.

Mary Zane Nelson:
Thank you.

Derek Smith:
Carrie Arroyo, senior lecturer of Social Work and co-principal investigator, along with Mary Zane Nelson, co-principal investigator and project director of Partnering for Heart of Texas Mental Health, our guests today here on Baylor Connections. I'm Derek Smith, reminding you can hear this in other programs online, baylor.edu/connections, and you can subscribe to the program on iTunes. Thanks for joining us here on Baylor Connections.