A new initiative from the University of Vermont hopes to address the shortage of mental health professionals available to support the state’s youth.

Known as the Catamount Counseling Collaborative for Rural Schools, the program plans to train and place 52 school counselors, social workers and mental health clinicians in rural schools throughout Vermont for the next five years.

 from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found rising levels of depression and anxiety among Vermont middle and high school students. 

Despite this, Vermont lacks an adequate number of . In 2023, the state’s Workforce Development Board estimated a need for 230 more providers to meet growing demand. 

The new Catamount Counseling Collaborative for Rural Schools aims to address the gap. 

Through the program — funded by a $3.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education — University of Vermont graduate students are expected to contribute at least 25,000 clinical hours annually to support rural communities.

“Vermont mental health needs are pervasive and complex and they’re currently underserved and this is a way to reach them,” said Anna Elliott, associate professor of counseling.

Elliott, the principal investigator for the grant, has experience running a similar initiative in Montana, where she spent five years developing a program to support rural communities with mental health professionals. 

A key part of the program, Elliot said, is to encourage graduates to continue working in rural schools or mental health facilities after completing their training. She said she tailored the program to Vermont’s unique needs. This included analyzing various statistics from community needs assessments on issues such as suicide rates, substance use disorder and the stigma associated with seeking mental health services, ensuring the program aligns closely with the landscape of Vermont’s mental health needs.

“One of our primary goals in setting up the training program was attending to students’ reports that they often didn’t feel prepared to go and work in a rural environment,” she said. “Having an intensive and intentional training program that sets them up to really understand what they’re walking into and how to be prepared and how to ask for support incentivized students to stay, so we’re hoping to replicate that here.”

The program offers a stipend to those who remain in their assigned schools for at least one year, helping to ease potential barriers like securing a full-time job or finding affordable housing.

In Montana, Elliott said she noticed some graduate students couldn’t stay in rural schools due to limited funding for permanent positions. Other challenges, including housing and job security, also made it difficult for them to remain in these high-need areas.

“I’m taking the model that I did in Montana and integrating that in with the community schools model to not just say, ‘here’s a couple graduate students that will be here for a year’ but let’s actually take a systemic look at what’s happening in the school — what are the needs, resources, barriers and strength,” Elliott said.

To address these challenges, the program focuses on recruiting graduate students who already come from rural areas. By offering low-residency options, the program allows these students to complete much of their coursework remotely. This means they can stay at home rather than moving to campus, making it easier for them to balance their studies with their existing commitments.

“This grant provides significant opportunity to bring students into the helping professions who might not otherwise have access to this kind of specialized training,” said Danielle Jatlow, a co-principal investigator and social worker who coordinates UVM’s bachelor’s of social work program, in a press release from the university.

UVM faculty, including program co-leaders Robin Hausheer and Lance Smith, both associate professors of counseling, are starting outreach to rural schools. They hope to place graduate students in schools as early as this semester, according to the release.

“There are people and kids that are getting served this year that might not have been otherwise,” Elliott said in the release. “So that feels like everything.” 

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Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb announced a cross-agency initiative Monday to provide more support to children with high acuity mental and behavioral health needs and keep youth in crisis in the least restrictive setting possible.

“Our agencies are working with a growing number of families who have children with significant and complex mental and behavioral needs,” Holcomb said in a release. “These families need help navigating the supports available to them so children receive the right services in their individual communities, and we are committed to helping them.”

The Family and Social Services Administration will be one of the four state agencies participating alongside the governor’s office in the Children with High Acuity Needs Project, as well as the Department of Correction, the Department of Child Services and the Department of Education. The four-point plan is geared toward a child’s overall well-being, according to the release.

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A multi-agency rapid response team has assisted more than 20 children and their families, state officials shared, by “finding an appropriate placement and connecting to needed services, helping to stabilize crisis situations.”

The four pillars of the project include:

• Cross-agency navigators that can coordinate care across state agencies and local services, whether education, mental health needs, intellectual or development disabilities, child welfare, juvenile justice or physical health needs. This pilot program will focus on using schools to avoid more restrictive settings, such as institutionalization, and helping those children leaving residential settings adjust to home life.
• and kinship caregivers, who will receive additional support to care for children with high acuity needs and be eligible for respite care. The state issued the request for proposals earlier this year and serving different parts of the state.
• A Gatekeeper process review for children in the state’s psychiatric hospital network to keep children in the least restrictive setting possible and allow youth to leave when ready, rather than staying longer than medically necessary.
• Youth transitional homes and caregiver coaching that will be an “intermediary” level of support for youth returning to the community following residential care. As opposed to traditional group homes, these residences aren’t designed to be long-term, but rather “to help youth reconnect with their daily routines and communities.” Families will also receive caregiver coaching.

The ongoing initiative, which will have upcoming stakeholder meetings with more information, will be receive some support from the state’s allotment of the .

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LINCOLN — A Nebraska panel on civil rights continued diving into the effects of COVID-19 on K-12 education Wednesday with a focus on youth mental health.

This was the third public meeting of the Nebraska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which is tasked with determining civil rights implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and possible recommendations to the national group. The advisory committee hosted two forums this summer, including a look into .

Jen Pollock of the Nebraska School Psychologists Association said there is a dramatic national workforce shortage, particularly in education. Still, teachers cannot be expected to be mental health experts.

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“They are experts in the content, and that’s what we need them to be,” Pollock said.

Schools could have a tiered system of support, however, which Pollock said includes building safe classroom environments for and positive relationships with students, reinforcing clear and high expectations and adopting rigorous course instruction.

‘There’s never too many adults’

Liesel Hogan, a licensed mental health practitioner who works in Educational Service Unit #3 with Pollock, said the impacts of shortages have direct student impacts. ESU #3 is , serving 18 school districts.

Schools require relationships, and trust and rapport among students and teachers are vital, Hogan added. If relationships don’t exist, students are less successful, and teachers can instead come to feel like “glorified babysitters,” according to Hogan.

“I always say that there’s never too many adults who can love a student in order to get them back to where they need to be from a functioning standpoint,” Hogan said.

The pandemic also led to more anxiety, more school absences and a fear of the unknown, with fewer students wanting to learn to drive or leave home for social interactions. Many students feel a lack of motivation, she said, because many activities were halted during the pandemic.

“An object in motion stays in motion,” Hogan said.

Increase in mental, behavioral concerns

Corey Lieneman, assistant professor in the University of Nebraska Medical Center Department of Psychiatry, said that since COVID-19, there has been a 25% increase globally in anxiety and depression.

Nationwide, about 20% of youths ages 3-17 have at least one mental or behavioral health disorder, and suicide is the second leading cause of death in children ages 10-14, Lieneman said. The rate of suicide among children ages 12-17 more than doubled from 2008 to 2020.

Brenda Bassingthwaite, associate professor at UNMC’s Munroe-Meyer Institute for Genetics and Rehabilitation, said each year has become progressively harder to consult in school settings.

This is because as students’ needs go unaddressed, new skills are harder for them to develop, Bassingthwaite said, and students instead adopt maladaptive behaviors such as destroying items or climbing on tables to gain attention or access to other opportunities.

“When we do not meet the needs of students early, the needs often grow and become more challenging to address,” she added.

Workforce shortages can lead to closing classrooms. Omaha Public Schools transferred children with special education needs to different schools this year because of a at three buildings. While there may be no other options, Bassingthwaite said, there will still be an impact on students.

Information overload

There’s also information overload for adolescents, Lieneman said, whose brains are not yet developed to the point where they can absorb all the information presented to them.

For example, students could not fully understand the technological implications during the pandemic or understand the virus itself, said Lestina Saul-Merdassi, behavioral health counselor, youth program director and certified advocate at the Nebraska Urban Indian Health Coalition.

The increase in technological use, fast-tracked by COVID-19, can also be concerning, Lieneman said. She noted that her child in middle school will have nearly 20 courses in the calendar year and most, if not all, have an online component with numerous links per class.

Lieneman offered some solutions to simplify education, such as:

• Eliminating or reducing some homework.
• Starting school later in the day.
• Increasing recreational and social opportunities.
• Reducing technology use.
• Setting developmentally appropriate expectations.
• Prioritizing sleep, healthy eating and physical activity.

Despite the challenges, Lieneman said, all panelists spoke on similar topics, suggesting a unified goal to improve student and teacher outcomes.

“It’s reassuring to know that we’re all kind of seeing the same things, and that helps me feel like we’re on a team,” Lieneman told the group, “and we’re going to be able to accomplish something together as a state.”

Members of the public can provide written comments to the Nebraska Advisory Committee before members forward a report to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Comments can be sent to Victoria Moreno at vmoreno@usccr.gov no later than Dec. 8.

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Nebraska Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Cate Folsom for questions: info@nebraskaexaminer.com. Follow Nebraska Examiner on and .