Senate Select Committee on Select Committee on School Climate and Student Safety

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome. The Select Committee on School Climate and Student Safety has now come to order. First of all, I want to thank all of you who have joined here in person and the bulk of our participation, which is remote across our state.

There's a need, and so many of our colleagues were not able to fly down here. And so we want to make sure that those watching at home are also able to listen and be able to have the information available. The link will remain in our social media webpage for anyone that needs it.

Once again, good afternoon and welcome everyone who's here today. I'm so honored to have such an esteemed guest here with me. As an educator myself for 20 years, I understand the need to explore this topic in light of COVID and other issues that are facing our young individuals.

I was vice principal for three years, which also gave me a much broader perspective of some of the issues facing our children. And so again, I could not be more thankful for such an incredible panel that we've assembled to discuss some of the most pressing issues now facing our children, especially as it pertains to mental health.

It's a very critical issue that now really demands for us to focus and see where we can find opportunities to make this better and offer support to our community members, our school districts, and of course, parents who continue to struggle at home.

So as we navigate the aftermath of COVID-19, which is really what some of the big focus of this Committee is going to be, what are we seeing in the aftermath? Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak to a school counselor who shared that she was dealing with a six year old who is suicidal.

And as we see, more and more, we're seeing younger and younger kids having mental health issues. And so, today I'm really focused on trying to find preventative measures, programs and support for those that need it. So today, I want to share some statistics. Vulnerable communities are particularly more exposed to some of these impacts.

For example, 29% of children with an autism spectrum disorder face at least one healthcare access problem. Research shows that many of our young population with autism face significant behavioral challenges, with 25% of them experiencing suicidal ideation.

Females with autism suffer even more disproportional impacts as they are nine times more likely to die by suicide compared to the rest of the population. And so in this hearing, the purpose is several issues that we want to address.

But in particular, we need to shed light on the current state of student mental health, identify key challenges, and explore potential solutions to make it better and support our parents in a more specific and meaningful way. We will be addressing several crucial aspects of student mental health today.

I'll be posing questions to our speakers, but I also hope that if our speakers have ideas or want to participate as somebody else is sharing information, please do so. I think it's more effective when it's interactive and we get to fully explore the conversation we have.

Our first panel will consist of a very important guest, and this guest will be giving an overview of the current mental health crisis following the COVID-19 pandemic. Please allow me to introduce Dr. Jeannine Topalian, who is past President of the California Association of School Psychologists and appointee to the state's Advisory Committee—I'm sorry, Commission on Special Education.

Dr. Topalian is a school psychologist who overcame personal learning challenges to pursue a distinguished career that spans now 22 years, and in particular, in education and mental health. She specializes in bilingual Armenian assessment, school neural psychological assessments, and she strives to enhance student services by bridging the gap between school programs and community resources. So please, Dr. Topalian, you may begin.

Thank you. And thank you so much, Senator, for having us today and for the opportunity, and Select Committee Members as well. This is a great opportunity to be able to share the information.

I'm representing CASP today as a past President, the California Association of School Psychologists, where we have over 2,000 members and we also have licensed educational psychologists, where we oversee the profession, where we have the ethics, the guidelines of what we do in everyday practice. Who are school psychologists?

School psychologists have unique specialized training to be able to bridge the gap between psychology and education. We are part of mental health teams. We are part of crisis teams. We work with parents, we collaborate with outside agencies. We have specialized knowledge in being able to do threat assessments and crisis intervention and programming as well.

And we collaborate with our other school based mental health providers who are the school counselors, the school social workers as well, to provide a collaborative--so we work with our other school based mental health professionals to be able to provide a holistic approach of being able to wrap the whole child around, from mental health needs to academic needs to behavioral needs as well. We serve the school communities and we provide counseling, assessment, research, outreach, program development, and promote social justice.

And many of our school based mental health professionals hold a minimum of a master's degree and a pupil personnel credential, which you need to work in the schools, where it's very specific of education based as well. So, the fact that the student-to-provider ratio -- professional recommendations. When you see these numbers, it's outrageous.

California, it says that 626-1 is the counselors ratio, to psychologists is 1041-1, and social workers is 7308-1. It's overwhelming, all our students being serviced by one social worker when there is a school site of 3000 to 4000 students.

Underfunded school mental health programs disproportionally impact our most vulnerable populations. Unfortunately, minorities, and at promised students, have less access to mental health services--are less likely to receive the needed care. Foster youth and homeless students where we could provide the most stable and positive component of their lives. They must adapt to abrupt changes and constant mobility.

School based mental health professionals will provide that stability for these students where they're able to collaborate, where they're able to provide healthy development, which leads to academic success. There are investment inequities. Many mental health conditions first appear in youth and young adults with 50% of all conditions by age of 14 and 75% by the age of 24.

As the Senator mentioned, there are six year olds out there who are in crisis today, who are in need of a lot of support from mental health professionals. And what better place than a school where that's a hub of the community to provide these services?

There's no doubt there's a growing need and it's being met in the schools. And we need mental health services programs, community outreach to be able to service the child holistically and wrap the child around, including the families, the parents, the extended family itself as well.

And it's well documented in research as well, where we see that if they don't receive students do not receive children, they don't receive the timely interventions or preventative work, then they will not be successful. They will not. The pipeline to prison will increase as well.

We need more access to early mental health so they achieve their life goals and they can shine. Investing in student mental health supports has far reaching benefits.

On the school sites, unfortunately, many of the school-based mental health professionals are overwhelmed with a lot of their heavy caseloads and they're not able to be preventative, so they're more reactive because they're not paying attention to those students because of their heavy caseload. The continuum of services is not being utilized in a productive way.

But research has demonstrated, fortunately, positively, research has demonstrated that having school based mental health professionals will help maintain the school community and the well being of the school--of the students.

Prevention helps demonstrate a lot of different positive social interventions and academic growth. Supporting students, there was one research done where there was an application used by students and it showed that the social skills intervention on high poverty elementary schools where it improved communication, where the students were able to have more self-control, they were able to have more responsibility, they're cooperative and improve their communication.

We not only help students, but we also help teachers. Because teachers are set up for failure, we provide them; they're in the classroom with students every single day. They are the first line of defense.

But given the research, when school based mental health providers are on campus and they're able to collaborate with the teachers, it's proven that academic success and social emotional health of students improve, and we support families as well.

Where parents--we work with parents, providing them workshops, homeschool partnerships and collaborations help them find positive effects in preventing aggressive and antisocial behaviors in their students. Collaboration is a big key. During the pandemic, the school based mental health professionals came together and we drafted this guiding document fostering the whole child, which is part of your package today.

This has become our guiding document not only during the pandemic, but throughout our work today because we have seen the importance of what students need and how we need to help them post-pandemically with the increased mental health needs students are facing in the school site, how we collaborate together and how we work together to support the students.

Where we try to reduce attendance barriers, we provide skill development, prepare for crisis, foster a positive climate, support professional development and we provide culturally responsive practices; implement multi-tiered systems of support as well, working together for a positive school climate and community for every student in our schools.

ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union conducted a study and had a report in 2022 and some of the highlights from this report include that 63% of students reported experiencing an emotional meltdown and 45% of students reported feeling depressed. 45% of our students--that's a lot of students.

Over half of our students reported the need for mental health services in both surveys, with over 22% of students desiring services for the first time each year.

After more than a year of pandemic and global shutdown in 2021, survey found only 17% of students reported an increase in mental health services at their school site and that overwhelming majority, 83%, did not experience change in access to services. Mental health, so what did the school report--what were some of the challenges that the report found?

They found that mental health, stress, and anxiety was high, social development was stunted, falling behind academically, and exhaustion, and struggling to maintain the teachers' patience is wearing off and they were able to notice that. Interestingly, WestEd has conducted based on the report, they report the national trends on the healthy kids.

They found that national trends that poor mental health and suicidal thoughts and behaviors increased from 2011 to 2021. High school students reported chronic, sadness, hopelessness, increased from 28% in 2011% to 42% in 2021. Thoughts of suicide increased from 16% to 22% and attempts of suicide increased from 8% to 10%.

The national trends are nearly identical to trends in California for chronic sadness and hopelessness. And suicide ideations? It's stable, but too high in California; it increased by us by five percentages points between 2017 and 2021. Although in 2022, the report indicates that there is a decline in suicidal ideations, it's still relatively high.

So we need to take those things into consideration, and that, students did report feeling less social distress, they did report feeling more social, and also, they reported more optimism and more satisfaction. But again, the outlook is not--It's relatively still weak. We still have a lot of work to do as we move forward because our students are facing a lot of challenges out in the schools.

Sustainability & Longevity: Addressing Mental Health. This was another study by the National Education Association (NEA) members, and they found that educators were facing a lot of stress and burnout, which increased the percentage and during the pandemic, and they were more likely to leave the profession.

More than half, 55%, of members say that they're more likely to leave or retire from education sooner than they planned, and that Black and Hispanic educators are more likely to say they're more likely to retire or leave early, which could leave the teaching profession less diverse.

Educators support several proposals to address educator burnout: raising educator salaries, providing additional mental health supports for students, hiring more teachers, more support staff, reducing the paperwork. Some of the suggestions that ACLU made was again, it's not new.

It's about increasing mental health services for youth: funding state level student led initiatives, increasing funding for school counselors, social workers, and psychologists and nurses, sustaining the increased funds to community schools, continuing to invest in school county partnerships, and supporting holistic education on wellness for arts, music, and dance, and increasing oversight accountability for district spending.

But there's positives, because with the multi-tiered systems of support, research has indicated that this is a level that has worked. What are multi-tier systems of support? There are different tiers. There's universal tier, targeted and specific where school-based mental health professionals work together collaboratively to support the whole child.

School-Wide Positive Behavior Supports (PBS) across the school setting where we are all able to help the student build social skills, be able to grow academically and, be able to strive for hire and be able to meet their goals. And what does that look like?

It's a comprehensive range of services where the students that need the most -- it's preventative. That's the most important message I could tell you; it's preventative, and being able to target the students that need more specific interventions at the different tier levels, mental health wise, and again, being able to provide these behavioral supports as well.

It's evidence-based, where we could provide evidence-based interventions at the different tiers, universal tier, where every student has an opportunity to benefit from those interventions or preventative work in itself. And students, what we find in healthy relationships, and positive school climate, healthy, happy students equates to positive school climate.

What we found is that school connectedness is a powerful predictor of adolescent health and student motivation to learn. This is not a new concept that teachers and parents have been saying over many years, since 1958. But think about it.

That one teacher that we all had in school, who motivated us to be able to attend school, to be able to capture us, to want us to go back for more, don't our students at school deserve this right?

To have a positive school climate, to be able to access and have the same opportunities and not have the barriers in place, so they could grow academically, socially, and, emotionally.

So mental health plays a crucial role, building healthy relationships, and fostering these relationships, promoting supportive and inclusive environments, and having positive school social interactions, and having the schools and the students come back to school, and being able to grow from there, having secure and supportive environments. But it's not only about the students as well.

It's about the teachers. Our school staff, we need to consider, as we are thinking about a positive school climate. We need to think about what has worked and what has not. And research has shown that staff-focused model of school climate works. So, thinking about the overall: we often tell teachers, our staff, what to do.

It's very important to think about asking them what they need, and what their skills, where their skill set is, before we implement or develop programs, they need to be part of the process rather than being the people who are in the front line trying to do this work for our students.

Because when we all work collaboratively together, we have higher rates of success and we're able to make it more successful at the end. Our end goal is to make these students be able to graduate, and be able to transition to college or advanced career goals.

So, we need to ask our staff members, and that's the most important thing before we do anything. Okay, so addressing the mental health. What have we seen post-COVID, is most important. What has worked with our students, and our schools? It's again, working collaboratively with our school team, because we cannot do this by ourselves.

There will be burnout. We need to incorporate the teachers, the school staff, from our maintenance staff all the way to our principals, to our district level staff, to our county, to having our state level staff, being able to all work together to come up with goals.

Because we will, people will burn out, people will leave the field and we will have more and more shortages, as we know. Consulting with teachers has worked, giving them positive interventions, asking them. When I walk into a classroom, I don't turn around and ask--I don't tell them what to do as a teacher. I say, "Hey, how could I help you? What do you need right now? What's going to work for you?"

That's what the message has to be clear, asking instead of telling. Providing information to teachers about signs of depression, because teachers are not trained to see all of this, and they're too busy having the curriculum that they need to provide for the students. It's putting something else on their table and having them to do in their classroom.

We need to provide them with some guidelines, and help, and assistance, and supports to be able to do that. And it's worked, we've been trying to do that post-pandemic, and some teachers will be receptive, and our goal is how do we empower them? Consulting with teachers, administrators to develop appropriate responses, and culturally responses. That's the most important thing is how do we respond culturally and be able to provide those services?

If I'm not able to provide it culturally, then where to go to find those services -- in the community, in the school site? Visiting classrooms, monitoring and also monitoring and checking in with the teachers, and being able to help them.

Providing threat assessments when warranted, struggling with issues, and then providing referral to staff and community agencies as warranted. Again offering to facilitate parent trainings. Because parents are not always well-equipped. They may be too busy having to make ends meet and they're working. They're not always around their children.

So, providing them some of the signs having opportunities, providing different things during different times of day, morning, night, afternoons when they're available on weekends, maybe assisting and developing and enhancing the school wide mental health supports referring students to outside agencies, because there's so much again within our scope setting and having that community support and working collaboratively together. And meeting with parents to discuss student needs and consulting again with all the different levels and having trauma-informed care.

So, what are some of the key insights? Team approach with other school-based mental health providers, and of course, the student voice from the ACLU, where I had the opportunity to attend in June last year in Los Angeles to meet with the students.

It was very important to hear what they need, what they want, as when we are asking the teachers, we need to listen to the students as well. The students voice matters. It's their self-report.

We need to listen to what students want, and again, continue utilizing the multi-tiered systems of support framework because it's working, even though it's not ahead of where we want to be, but it's still working.

It's giving us some supports in the schools, and again, funding school based mental health professionals to be able to triage, to work together to provide the timely, effective mental health supports for all our students, and our school staff as well.

And also, I should add that telepractice or telehealth is another thing that has worked for students who are not able to attend to school, which has given them some way of transitioning back to campuses, students who are chronically, medically fragile, for students who have social anxieties and they cannot.

Now we have the option of providing this telehealth, which has helped with a lot of those barriers in the school site. So again, these are some resources in your packet and you guys could access. Thank you, should you guys have any questions, please reach out. I'm available. And thank you for this opportunity.

Again, thank you, Doctor Topalian. Before I move forward, I want to make sure that the audience knows that after we conclude, we're going to have a comment time, and if you have any questions, write them down. We're going to be able to come up to the microphone and address the questions that you have.

We'll hold off to the end until we're able to get through all our panels. But just as a recap, and what I heard right now is, you know, really important information. So, thank you for that.

But I guess what I'm taking away from this is, number one, we need to avoid, to be reactive, and more proactive in terms of providing support. We need to be more targeted in our approach to intervention, more specifically geared towards that individual. And number three, promoting supportive, inclusive and safe environments.

And we often think of that as it pertains to the student. But we don't necessarily always focus on the teachers, administrators, because they also have to be supported. And I know personally through the pandemic, I had a lot of colleagues who retired; it was overwhelming, did not want to do the job.

And we were often thinking about the students, but not necessarily those that are teaching in the classroom. So, I want to thank you for that. I want to move over to our next panel. That's our panel number two. And again, continue to write your questions.

We're going to ask you to come up to the dais and address those questions for you. Our next panel is, again, really incredible leaders here who are going to address mitigating factors, and how we can help to contribute to the mental health of our students and address the decline as it pertains to after the pandemic as well.

First, we have with us Jonathan M. Wicks, who is a licensed clinical social worker, who is a service provider here in the San Gabriel Valley. He offers support and resources to adults and children exposed to traumatic experiences, particularly sexual violence and domestic violence.

He has also collaborated with Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, Department of Public Health and Los Angeles County of Office of Education, training parents and service providers, helping to address adverse childhood experiences and behavioral health challenges, again here in the San Gabriel Valley, and currently is with the YWCA of San Gabriel Valley. So I'll turn it over. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you. Welcome. Thank you for allowing this opportunity to speak here, Senator. So I just have some talking points that I'll be going over. As she shared, I'm coming from more of that community-based organization perspective. So, really hoping just to offer some insights from what I've seen, providing services in the community. Is the slide deck ready?

But I could keep going while they work on that. So I just have some kind of three areas that I wanted to address today. First, like I said, looking at the community-based organization perspective on youth and mental health, and then also looking at school-based services, which. Thank you for all of that information, Doctor.

Really helpful and insightful. But then also looking at an initiative we've been working on, really a pilot program, social media harm reduction and Social Media First Aid, kind of looking at addressing that impact on youth and mental health. So I'll keep going here. So from my perspective.

So we just had a meeting this week, actually, because what's happening, or from what I'm hearing from other providers, especially those that are on the school campuses, there is, you know, this kind of overwhelming caseload right now. And so they're not always able to meet the needs, especially if they're high-risk referrals.

And so a lot of those, as we're talking about the impact of the pandemic, some of it is social isolation. A lot of us, not only children, but adults as well, we became a lot more isolated. And so now that we're all reintegrating back into social spaces, a lot of times it's not as easy to connect.

And so that connectedness, that belongingness isn't always there. So sometimes that's a presenting challenge for the suicidal behavior, suicidal ideations, is that just being socially isolated? But also there is an increase in substance induced psychosis. So right now, a lot of youth are turning to substances to cope, particularly THC.

And, you know, nowadays you can get a cartridge, and the concentration level is a lot higher than it used to be for, you know, I guess you could say, traditional marijuana or flour.

And so a lot of clinicians I've been working with, you know, they speak to that, that the youth don't know that history of marijuana and how it's changed here in our country. And so because of that, they're kind of overindulging and going into psychosis.

So those type of high-risk, you know, high referrals, a lot of times the school system is not able to accommodate those needs, and so they will be referred out to psychiatric hospital or sometimes a community-based organization.

And so I bring up the meeting I was in this week because we have a behavioral health program at the YWCA of San Gabriel Valley. Before I go on, I guess I should have said, we also have a domestic violence program, senior service program, and youth services. So we do a lot.

We're a multi service agency, and so we're an example of an agency that we do offer behavioral health and mental health services, but we don't have the capacity to take high risk cases like that. And so sometimes, you know, you might look for funding opportunities, and I'm using DMH as an example.

And sometimes the ambivalence there is, you know, we don't have the capacity to take on a contract of that caliber and really stay compliant. So I think that's a challenge, you know, to meet the need of mental health is that some of the service providers are willing, they just might not have the capacity to take on those type of high-risk clients or receive the funding that could help them deliver those type of services.

And then that kind of moves you into maybe there's a fee for service option or maybe there's an insurance option, but a lot of the families, you know, either they can't afford it or they're uninsured.

And so I think that still creates a gap right now and meeting the need, and then that kind of takes me to talking about stigma around mental health. So I've been doing a lot of work throughout the cities. In the San Gabriel Valley, there's a lot of different ones.

And particularly in Azusa, I was running into that cultural challenge of not, you know, the full family being open to behavioral health services. And so sometimes you have families that are intergenerational within the home.

And so although youth seem to be a lot more open to mental health services, sometimes it's the older adults in the family that might still be ambivalent to engage with the system. So I think that's another unique challenge that in the San Gabriel Valley, being as diverse as it is, we do have a lot of intergenerational families.

And so sometimes that creates a barrier to, particularly youth accessing the services that are available. I was doing some work at a youth and family center, again, in Azusa, and I could see the challenge for the youth to hear the information and maybe want to move in that direction.

But when they would go home and have those discussions, they would kind of come back with a, no, thank you. So a lot of times, sometimes it's that cultural piece there. Then there's also the reality that youth don't always have spaces to where they can have their voices heard or even just connect with each other.

So that's something I would recommend, you know, is how are we creating these spaces where youth can be heard? And like I said, are there youth advisory opportunities? One of our programs right now are the Trauma Prevention Program, and we have a youth advisory board. And so that's a really important piece, allowing them to come in and talk about what they're seeing amongst their peers.

So that's kind of the community-based perspective right now on youth and mental health, but I'll keep going. So, school-based services, as Dr. Topalian mentioned, there is that pupil personnel service certification.

So a lot of times, if you're not already working in that school-based system, you're not, you know, really seeing those types of clients. So something that, you know, I'm thinking is a good recommendation is to increase workforce development around helping professionals.

I know when I was coming up through college or even in high school, I did not think about social work or mental health, but I think that's an initiative that maybe that could down the road, you know, help increase those roles, because it sounds like that is a huge problem, right?

Is there's a shortage of these professionals that have the qualifications and the certifications. So I think looking at that next generation, a workforce development initiative would be a really great direction to go. And then I did want to talk about community schools.

That's something that, again, in Azusa, the initiative we're working on is all in for Azusa, and it's an integrated care model or collaborative care model operative called BULQ. And essentially, you just want to create an easy access point for families in the community.

So sometimes it might be based out of a youth and family center, or sometimes it might be based out of a school district. But the point is to bring together different providers.

You might have a mental health provider, you might have a medical provider, dental provider, educational resources, but you bring them all into one location so that families, as they are sending their children to school, they could get all of those.

It's almost like a wraparound for the community, right? Where you have all of them kind of consolidated into one central location. So I think that's a really effective model that I've seen that has a lot of promise.

So I did want to keep going into looking at, you know, teachers, and so I have four older sisters, and one of my favorites, she's an administrator, and so we talk a lot, and you know, she tells me about the challenges they have on their campuses.

And I know that teachers are already kind of overburdened with trying to manage classrooms, trying to learn more emotional intelligence and all these things. But oftentimes I hear the recommendation for more mandatory training for teachers, particularly around mental health. So Mental Health First Aid is a great option if you haven't already taken that training.

It's a train-the-trainer program, and I was very impressed when I took it. So I think that's the way to go, is looking at making sure teachers are getting that exposure to training. And again, I say that cautiously because I don't want to overburden teachers. I think it's a really difficult job to have right now.

And a lot of that, you know, I think that comes with, are there additional skills that are needed to manage these changing classroom dynamics? But again, there's a high rate of burnout, as Doctor shared earlier. So I think there's a slippery slope there with requiring teachers to get more mental health training.

But I think a good option is Mental Health First Aid, which is also where Social Media First Aid comes in, because that's another huge factor right now with youth and mental health, is looking at how social media is impacting them.

And, you know, I think a lot of folks nowadays are following what's happening around legislation and different policy recommendations for mental health and social media. And you can think about, like, the recent cell phone ban as an example, and although, you know, prohibiting use like that could be effective, a lot of times it can create resistance.

And so some of the thought there is, how do we kind of meet people where they are? And a lot of that can come from looking at harm reduction. And if you don't know about harm reduction, it's a substance use approach.

Where you really want to try to find healthier ways to reduce the harm, it's kind of knowing sometimes it's not realistic to expect people to just go completely obstinate or to completely stop using a substance, or in this case, social media.

So Social Media First Aid is essentially designed to uplift those social media harm reduction perspectives, which leads to sustainability. You know, when you're thinking about systems change, these are things that are going to take years.

And a lot of times it's about finding a program that could be implemented and integrated into curriculum, again, without overloading the educator or the administrators. But I'll get into social media harm reduction a little bit more.

So, like I shared, it really is taking some pages out of harm reduction, which you can think about smoking cessation programs or even like, seatbelts, right? There's things in our society that they've been introduced to reduce the harm. They don't always 100% lead to a stoppage of use, but it helps promote healthier use.

And so you could think about, like, a clean needle program, which some people have opposition to that, you know, where they feel like, hey, you're kind of encouraging them to use substances. It's more, like I said, meeting them where they are, knowing that they're not going to stop.

So how do we provide resources that are going to help them reduce, you know, the likelihood that they're going to spread disease. So social media harm reduction is kind of coming from that perspective, where we want to help acknowledge that there's benefits and consequences to using social media.

And this is a program that we piloted out of a youth and family center in Azusa. And so it started as one of the five support group topics that I was facilitating, but it has turned into more of a curriculum now, which, like I said, is Social Media First Aid.

And so that is something that we've been able to pilot with the LA County Department of Public Health recently, actually. So in June and May, we did, they have their Public Health Ambassador Program, and so we partnered with them and facilitated workshops for parents, youth, and community professionals.

And so we've also done some workshops, other places in the San Gabriel Valley, like in Pasadena. That's where we were able to work with 64 students at Blair High School and do a workshop on Social Media First Aid. We also did a workshop for 15 parents at Gladstone Middle School.

So it kind of has that multifaceted approach where we know students, you know, could benefit from psychoeducation around social media. We know parents are also looking for information on social media, and then as well as professionals.

And so a lot of it, like I said, is a combination of harm reduction, psycho-education, and the approach of Mental Health First Aid. So, Mental Health First Aid is not a program designed to help you treat mental health. They recognize that everyone is not, you know, a clinical professional. But can you at least recognize the risk?

Can you at least recognize the signs of a mental health crisis or situation and then refer them to the appropriate level of care? Social Media First Aid is designed to do that same thing where we know that social media is impacting people in a lot of different ways.

So a really big central design component of Social Media First Aid is the whole self, really resonated with the whole child. I think when you look at a person biologically, psychologically, socially, spiritually, culturally, there's a lot of different ways that they could be impacted.

So a lot of the psychoeducation in Social Media First Aid is looking at all the different ways that social media might impact the person, but also helping reduce the bystander effect, where if you do recognize someone as being challenged with social media, how do you then connect them to support and resources, you know, to help them move in that healthier direction or reduce that harm?

So I recommend that, again, as I think that's a promising pilot that we've seen, and there seems to be some traction for it. But going back to the reality of how service works, where you need to have an evidence-based, you know, perspective. And so there's still a need for research, there's still a need for more funding around this.

But I do think moving forward, you know, social media is kind of here for now, and it's causing a lot of challenges. So I would really hope that we can find ways to get this integrated into schools so that students are getting a more consistent exposure to it and starting to reduce some of those harms. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you so much. There's a lot of information here, and I always like to, for at least for myself, see what I can take away from these discussions. And I'm hearing a lot of the key points that I heard for myself is just the need to educate teachers. And I cannot help but think of my own experience.

You know, we're not mental health professionals, and yet when you're in a classroom and you have a child that has a crisis, you don't know how to handle it, but yet we're expected to handle it. And I've done many of those.

And you don't necessarily think of an effect that's not quantifiable or we cannot put our finger on it. And that is the impact to other students. I think I heard Dr. Topalian say earlier today, you know, we have children with meltdowns.

Well, what happens when someone has a meltdown in the class where thinking and focusing on the child with the crisis, but yet we don't think of the 24, 25 kids we have to abandon in order to focus on that one child. So we are also impacting those that don't have any behavioral health issues.

And so the education for teacher is key, at least helping them to recognize the crisis, helping them with resources so they can deal with the issues as they come. The other part is the education for parents. You know, they're ordinary citizens just struggling to put food on the table and take care of their households.

They're not necessarily focused on becoming mental health professionals. And as much as we can give them resources, I think it's critically important. And the other aspect which I've tried really hard to do is the education on the dangers of social media. I don't think we see sometimes what's happening.

And you said a key word which I hear constantly as we're talking about education is the bystander effect. And a lot of the times we see it, we recognize it, but we don't know what to do with it.

And I'm sorry to bring this up, but I do, as we just had the assassination of former President Trump, when they were referring to the young man that actually committed the act. You heard from all his classmates and over and over, the two words that I kept hearing is socially awkward, isolated, and the other portion was bullying.

He was extremely just being bullied every single day. And they're talking about it. So they knew about it, but yet everyone failed to do something about it. It was very clear this young man was in distress.

And no one really necessarily, I'm making an assumption here, but I'm going to guess they didn't report it to, you know, their principal, their parents, their teachers, and they just saw it on the playground, I'm sorry, during lunch and after hours where he was being bullied.

And just from what they said, their own words, it was very extreme. And so he became a recluse and didn't want to hang out with anyone. And so that's, you know, where sometimes social media could be dangerous, right?

It wasn't the case in this young man, but then they turned to social media for friends and sort of guidance, and that's not necessarily the place you go for mentorship. And so thank you for that information. So we're going to move over to the next panelist, and I want to introduce Kim Griffin Esperon.

She has over 25 years experience developing and implementing a wide range of school mental health programs.

Currently serving as the Project Director for Mental Health and School Counseling for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, Miss Griffin Esperon works closely with district leaders and school staff to enhance the multi-tiered school mental health support available to students throughout Los Angeles County. Welcome. Thank you so much. The floor is yours.

Members of the Senate Committee on School Climate and Student Safety, thank you. As mentioned, my name is Kim Griffin Esperon, and I am the Project Director III of the Los Angeles County Office of Education's Mental Health and School Counseling Unit. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about addressing student mental health.

As you have just heard from the previous presenters, our students have been facing mental health challenges at greater rates in the last several years. There are many factors contributing to the mental health challenges students are facing today, including, but not limited to: isolation and loneliness, negative messaging and/or experiences of discrimination, particularly around gender identity and orientation, race and ethnicity, and immigration status, unrealistic social standards around physical appearance, bullying and cyberbullying, chronic stressors, including housing or food insecurity, and trauma, grief, and loss.

Fortunately, there are many protective factors that lower the likelihood of negative outcomes for youth. Protective factors that promote resilience include participation and group activities in school and in the community, supportive family relationships, social support, including a connection with a caring, reliable adult, physical exercise and healthy diet, positive emotions and hope for the future, ability to regulate emotions, problem solving and communication skills, and active coping skills.

Schools are in a unique position to mitigate risk factors and promote protective factors through a multi-tiered system of support framework as mentioned by Dr. Topalian. Traditionally, schools and communities have understood mental health supports and services to be necessary only for those students who have been identified as having a mental health disorder or they've assumed that all students experiencing mental health challenges require intensive mental health interventions.

Fortunately, our understanding has evolved to refocus our attention on prevention and earlier identification of students who are struggling, as well as referral to the appropriate level of services to meet student needs. One of the most critical strategies is to ensure that each district and school has adopted and fully implemented a comprehensive set of policies with step by step protocols which address student emotional and physical safety.

This includes protocols related to bullying prevention and intervention, suicide prevention, intervention, and postvention, threat assessment and response, and crisis response. Ensuring that school and district staff are well trained and are implementing these protocols promotes student safety and works to mitigate the effects of events that can lead to the development or worsening of mental health symptoms.

In addition, promoting mental health literacy for all staff, students, and caregivers is an essential strategy in advancing well-being and reducing stigma related to experiencing mental health symptoms and disorders. By providing mental health literacy education to both the adults and the students, the early identification, support, and linkage to services of students in need is more likely.

Mental health literacy is effective, is most effective, and has a wider reach when provided through a variety of pathways including classroom-based curricula, school-wide campaigns, staff professional development, and parent education workshops, and web-based resources.

Peer-to-peer mental health outreach and engagement is also increasingly viewed as an effective method of reducing stigma around mental illness and services, encouraging students help seeking behaviors, and promoting and reinforcing the development of healthy coping strategies. There are several models of peer-to-peer support available for schools to adopt.

It is highly recommended that the students be included in the exploration and adoption of a model to ensure buy-in and cultural relevance. The implementation of social emotional learning and resilience skill building programming has also shown to be effective in increasing resilience, mental health, and well-being in students while reducing depressive symptoms, internalizing behaviors, and anxiety when implemented on a universal level.

SEL programming, which is reinforced and threaded throughout school activities, provides for increased opportunities for skill rehearsal and improved school climate. For students needing more support to master SEL skills, additional instruction and practicing of skills can be provided in small group settings.

Enhancing connectedness between students, staff, and parents is another strategy that can reduce feelings of isolation and loneliness, increase positive social interaction between students, and improve school climate.

There are many ways school can enhance connectedness, including increasing positive two-way communication and collaboration between staff and parents, providing staff professional development around positive discipline and positive communication, providing several avenues for student involvement in school activities, including student clubs, affinity groups, volunteer activities, peer ambassador programs, and access to support groups, encouraging student voice in decision-making as much as possible, developing well spaces where students can seek out support and connection with staff or other students in a safe environment, and implementing restorative practices such as community building and instructional circles, staff and student mediation, and healing circles.

As previously mentioned, school staff are the backbone of any school system. Similar to other helping professionals, however, educators can experience burnout and secondary traumatic stress. This reduces their overall well-being and effectiveness in the classroom and at school.

Providing opportunities and resources for educators to participate in a range of wellness programs supports the well-being of both the staff and their students. School staff--sorry--in addition, one more system that helps schools or schools that can serve as hubs for services and resources for students and families.

The California Community School Framework is one model that has been shown to be very effective in providing these services, which reduces student and family stress and therefore their well-being. When selecting strategies, we encourage schools to use data. We want schools to look at school climate data such as the California Healthy Kids Survey and the California Dashboard.

We also want them to look at the information their schools collect such as discipline, attendance, referral and service data to see where the gaps are and to look at disaggregated data so we can see which students are being served best and which students are struggling the most. We also encourage students to use quantitative data.

This is surveys, interviews, focus groups with students, family, and staff so they can determine root causes of the data points that they are looking at and to get input and feedback on the services and programming that the schools select in order to intervene.

In addition, I would encourage schools to consider evidence-based practices and promising practices that are adaptable to the cultural background and communities in which their schools are in. In closing, I would just like to add that there are so many strategies out there that schools can utilize to support student mental health.

The careful selection of interventions, however, is key. What we want to avoid is the random acts of service which aren't targeting the actual needs of each school. At the LA County Office of Education, we provide technical assistance, counseling, and--I'm sorry--technical assistance, consultation, and training for local education agencies and their staff. This is also available through other county offices of education. So we would encourage schools and districts to utilize these resources. Thank you very much.

Thank you, and I know as I look out in the audience, we have a lot of school board members, a lot of teachers that I happen to know personally, so I'm glad that we have this information coming out. That was great, as usual. Being a teacher, I like to recap to make sure that we take away the most, I would say, you know, at least for me, high level things that we can do, and you've highlighted a lot of effective ways that school districts can help.

Number one, we need to make sure that we're focusing on bullying prevention and intervention, which is key, suicide prevention and intervention, school-wide campaign to tackle issues in a broad way.

Peer-to-peer support has proven to be effective as it minimizes the stigma on students, and I would--you know, I think it will transcend to families as well--include programs that are developed by students, so there's buy-in and it's culturally appropriate; also provide well spaces on campuses, so there's students in distress, they can go seek the help. And lastly, I heard you say this pretty forcefully, avoid random acts of service.

So with that, thank you for such great information, and I think some of our school districts can already take some of these items and see if they can help them and implement them in their own schools. So now I want to turn over to Dr. Loretta Whitson, Executive Director of School Counselors.

Dr. Whitson is the founder and Executive Director of the California Association of School Counselors, leading the largest state association for school counselors in the nation for over two decades. Welcome, and when you're ready, you have the floor. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Happy to be here, and I just want to say how much I appreciate Senator Rubio, for you convening today's meeting. It's such a very important topic today, and I would be remiss if I didn't thank the other members of this committee for all the legislation that they've authored and passed over the last few years regarding mental health.

It's been quite amazing and I think we're at a--I'm going to kind of shift a little bit. I'm going to talk about things that I think that are really happening in regards to policy and the work that we're doing at the local level to implement the policies also that have happened over the last few years. So I'm just happy to share some things and I've--like you said--I've been doing this a long time, a couple decades. What I learned probably the most was when I was a school district administrator in the Los Angeles County area.

So that was for 22 years where I was working to make, try to make things happen. We are a local, controlled state, and so at the local level is so very important how we are able to help school districts to implement the needs and recognize the needs of mental health with our students.

So here are some data pieces that--we have over 13,000 school counselors working in California schools, by far the largest state. Fifteen percent of school counselors work in California, and there's 33 universities, programs. So the ability for us to scale up has been there. The other pieces that we have, and I know that it was shared that we had 660, you know--well, that was two years ago I was able to pull down some data, and we're actually at 443 students per school counselor, and I'll show you why that's important.

So there's other data sets that are happening, but one of the things that--it was shared with me, I don't have the data in front of me--but it was shared by someone from the California Teachers Association that we only have lost 250 employees throughout the State of California this year.

And why that's significant is that in times of financial crises, when school districts have to adjust their employees and let people go, it's like teachers get a cold, we lose a few, but the support services is like we get pneumonia, you know, it's like we just lose people. And we didn't this year.

And so, you know, we can assume why that might be. Maybe that we are now becoming more integrated within the systems, and they see our value in a different way. And I also think it's the defining of what a school does and going beyond the idea that we're just producing students through an academic process in order to graduate and to be successful, but it's also looking at the Whole Child, as Jeannine has says, is that the Whole Child is so important.

And that shift in perspective, I think, is really contributing to some of the changes that we're do. Also, the fact is that we've had quite a bit of crises with our students and so that has also forced it, but I also see that that's been happening over the course of time.

There was a report that was out in 2017, I believe, 2018, that said that we have a workforce shortage in regards to mental health service staff. And so that was out of the San Francisco State University, that research, and we are seeing that now. We're seeing the issue.

So I wanted to point out how many programs we have for school counselors because I think that's significant. When you have other programs or other professions that might have six or eight training programs, we have quite a bit, meaning we're producing about 2,000 school counselors a year, which also could be why we are also seeing our ratios drop and the number of people working our schools create.

So you'll see here in this data set, the student-to-school counselor ratio in California in 2012-2013 was 826 students, one. Now we are half that amount, approximately. And so when you think about it, and for Senator Rubio, who was a teacher, when you have a couple extra kids in your classroom, it changes things, you know, so when you actually have from 800 to 400, I think 800 would be more like urgent care. We're responding to crisis, and we spend a lot of our time.

When you have less, when you're going, you know, when you have 400, then you're able to do comprehensive, strategic work. And so that's--we're not where we want to be, which is the recommendation at the national level, is to 150 students for every school counselor, but we're moving in the right direction.

And so I applaud that, that we are, and I equate that to some of the things that locally, school districts are making those choices and I think that's been very positive in that way. We've also been bringing in quite a bit of elementary counselors. Before that was unheard of to have an elementary counselor.

But now we're seeing from district to district that they're bringing in elementary counselors, which our middle school counselors and our high school counselors say, oh, my gosh, you're so much better for them because they're teaching them how social skills, coping skills, also looking at it from a Whole School environment, and safety and inclusion, as was said in regards to the attempted assassination on Trump, you know, this is the kid that was in isolation and what it was done or not done in regards to trying to bring him forward and have him being included.

And I think that's very important in the work that's being done by all the school-based mental health professionals on campus, social workers, psychologists, and school counselors. So if you'll see this here, these are the things that have happened most recently in regards to the--that has affected the school counseling profession but also has affected, in general, what we're doing in schools.

The first one is that there was a Golden State Teacher Grant that was, that would give about $20,000 for teachers going in the profession because we have a teacher shortage and we've had a teacher shortage, but it was also a few years ago we've included school psychologists, school social workers, and school counselors in that where they're able to draw down funds, so that is also increasing our enrollment in our university programs, which is excellent. Also, in 2022, we had 184 million dollars that was applied for a residency program.

So what that means is that it's an induction program. So you can train folks in graduate school to be school counselors, but that induction, when you actually transition into the job, we said, we had kind of had a Go with God philosophy. You know, you're on your own.

But now we are actually using this residency program to really implement effective counseling by working with them for two years within that, their first two years of the program and helping them be stronger and partnering with them, and I'm partnering with a lot of districts and helping them in that process.

There's another program that is just now coming forward that will require supervision from school psychologists, social workers, and counselors, but it also addresses what was said by Mr. Wicks in regards to workforce development. So workforce development, now we're going to have these wellness coaches coming on our campuses that will be supervising.

They're two-year and four-year trained individuals that are designated to really be there to help draw out kids and to work in partnership with the highly educated mental health staff to do that work. And we're excited about that and also a little concerned about how that's going to transition in because we know that is happening now and then just making sure that we're dealing within our scope of practices effectively and whether it's a supervision piece that is adequate.

We also have, we had a bill that was passed in 2022, which was the AB 2058, which Quirk-Silva speaks sponsored, and that was to really up our educational codes, having to do with educational counseling and mental health services within our schools. We had not really changed that law for about 35 years, so that's been updated.

Out of that, we were able to get Medi-Cal billing for school counselors equitable to everyone else, meaning licensed professional counselors, marriage and family counselors, psychologists, social workers. We are the first in the nation to have that provision now so that we're able to bill--the school district will bill and get money back so that they are able to sustain a number of people in their workforce. And that's what we want, because we don't want to lose school counselors or others in the process.

There's another piece with that Medi-Cal billing piece is that we have a multi-payer fee schedule that is coming forward, and that is about how we can use private insurance to be able to offset the costs for mental and behavioral health and physical health types of treatment on school campuses.

There was a cohort one that happened starting January. Cohort two started July 1, and so we're seeing how that's going to work. So it's a complex system. I was on a committee with the state for a couple of years trying to work on how this would happen, and so, we will see how that goes forward.

But that is another thing coming out of California's administration and Governor Newsom, and the idea is how do we deal with some of the obstacles, which is funding. So if funding was an obstacle, then we wouldn't be talking about this, but it is, and so how can we bring in money to sustain some of the work that we think is so very important with that? So since that time, we created standards, and those are based on empirical research and best practices, and those standards are within six areas of importance.

One of the newest addition to this--it was revised from 2007, so it was a long time before we had revised these--but one of the biggest things is that we have mental health services now as a standalone standard, and that is really telling a story about how we work within the areas that all of you have been talking about, which is quite wonderful.

And I'm going to show you the mental health one here just to show you how this works because as we talked about multi-tiered system support, this is how this works when you think of mental health. So if you look at a tiered one support, which is school climate, which is where we would have caught this child and probably performed tier two and tier three support for him, but how do you find and find kids? How do you make sure the school is safe and that kids feel engaged and connected to everyone?

And then what do you do when they're not? And so the way we work is that we collaborate with all educational professionals. We work with the teachers and strengthen the teachers' capacity, other staff members' capacity. We also do various mental health assessments. How do you find out if you need them?

There's universal screenings and other ways that we determine. We also have ways for teachers to be able to report out and also train other students because you know how it is when you're--especially, let's go with high school. All of us have had that experience, right? So what happens when you're a high school student?

You're not going to snitch on someone. You know, I remember a time that someone told me that they were suicidal, and I didn't do anything about that. You know, I didn't know, and he committed suicide. I didn't know that, and probably was the thing that happened in my past that drove me into this profession because I didn't know to report. So we work in that level to help students know you're not snitching when you're telling us. You know, we're there to support you and help you.

The other piece that we do with this is we have, like, initial pieces like group counseling, individual counseling, classroom lessons and things like that to really teach and help the students. In regards to that, all of you have talked about listening to students. Yes.

That's part of that, too, is listening and being available, being out there and being present for kids so that they feel connected to us. And the third one is really intensive treatment. If this triangle was upside down, this model was upside down, we'd be spending so much money on the three percent or four percent that really need intensive work.

Where we want to spend most of our time instead is in the prevention area because it's cost-effective and it works. One of the ways we do that is we work within the--we just--actually, I just came back from a trip to the Midwest where we had our national convention, and California won the Pinnacle Award, which is the only award every year given to a state for doing exceptional work in a certain area within the school counseling profession.

What we won the award for was our student mental health week, which we do every year, which--and we have lessons, we have trainings, we have marquee signs and social media posts on reducing stigma and honoring kids within the idea of their own mental well-being. And it's very important, and it's actually extremely exciting to see.

This is the five years we've been doing it, just how it's grown from district to district and how there are recognizing kids in that area. So let's see. We have this--there we go. So--and this is the acute and chronic mental health services--and so, 1970, we, a bill was passed, and it was before my time. I just want you to know, I'm not that old. But it was, it had to do with integrated services.

And the best I get, I'm kind of nerdy with looking up stuff like this and seeing when laws pass and kind of interest in it, but it passed, and it talked about integration of services and the work that we do, like Mr. Wicks does with our community partners.

And so that was the first indicators that our pupil personnel services, our mental health staff work with outside folks to really bridge the gaps that we have with students, and so that also talked about when people come on school campuses that they have to be supervised by school psychologists, social workers, and counselors.

So we think that's very important that everyone's talking to each other, we're all working together, and we're able to share, even if we're HIPAA or we're FERPA, which is the regulations on how we share information, that we have bridged those gaps. And we've done that not only just with that statute, but with statues that were just recently passed to make sure that we can talk to each other in that area. Moving on, I think I don't know where to point. Okay, here.

So when we think about this, I think we need to think about how do we scale up with that. We also need to think about the 60 percent of our school districts that are small. So how do you do mental health when you have a school district that has 300 kids in there? It's difficult.

You know, how do you have enough staffing to do that? How do you work in partnership with community agencies? How do you bring in enough people and how does everyone fit within their role of, you know, to build their competence in the systems that they work within, but also in their scope of services and working together collaboratively?

And I think that's where I'm hoping that as we move forward, as the state has taken a lead and is recognized for their work in this area and all the new things they've had, that we also look at how we help locally to do with all districts, not just the bigger districts, but the smaller districts and help meet those needs and work together. So thank you. Appreciate the time.

Thank you very much, and again, everybody here is sharing a lot of important information, and to me, it's really important that I share with you how important it is that you're bringing residency programs, which is a two-year program. I remember being assistant principal and losing teachers that had spent a lifetime trying to get their credentials and get the work in. They would work for six months and then realized it wasn't for them because they just couldn't handle it.

And so I think hands-on and maybe a little bit more specifically, having mentors as they go through those programs is key to success. But I also want to say, which is something that I also think is important, transitioning from just seeing the child as progression from one grade to the next, just getting them out of the system and giving them a diploma to transition into now, seeing them as human beings, a Whole Child, and making sure that all their needs are met, not just educational needs, but also their mental health and their well-being.

But lastly, money continues to always be an issue as it pertains to programs in schools and outside of schools and this, even though it's a complicated tier system but now you're able to leverage Medi-Cal and private insurance dollars, so that's wonderful.

So lastly, but not least, we have someone here that's going to share a little bit of--let me see if I can find my--there we go--a little bit more, and once again, I'll remind our audience that you have the opportunity to ask questions. Once we're done, I want to introduce Joel Cisneros, Administrator of Student Health and Human Services for LAUSD, and Mr. Cisneros, when you're ready, the floor is yours.

Well, thank you so much, Senator Rubio, for this opportunity, and certainly, I think, in the 20 years that I've been doing this work, I've never felt so welcomed in public spaces and that the narrative and the policy is really beginning to support the work that we're doing. So thank you for being a champion in Sacramento and for everyone else that's doing that, not only in Sacramento, but in communities across our wonderful state.

As mentioned, Joel Cisneros with LAUSD, and I, as you were mentioning, you know, small districts, I felt a little bit like I needed to, you know, feel small because certainly LAUSD is our largest district in California. It's the second largest district in the U.S. We have close to half a million students across 700 square miles.

So that in itself can present some challenges, certainly, and I think one of the things that we have done as LA Unified very strategically is a couple years ago when our Superintendent Alberto Carvalho came on board, is created a very coherent strategic plan that really laid out what we needed to do to really promote academic excellence.

And for the first time since I've been in this district, a whole pillar dedicated around joy and wellness and promoting social emotional health. So one of the, my remarks are going to be really rooted around those, the joy and wellness area and the benefits of going last, I'm also the closer, so I also think that it's an opportunity. I'm going to keep my remarks short because I want to engage in the dialogue. As Senator Rubio said, oftentimes that's where the magic happens.

So for us, with really talking about this area around joy and wellness and promoting mental health across LA Unified, I'm really going to focus on three areas, really around stigma reduction--I know many of my colleagues have already mentioned that--also around access. What does access look like to mental health services?

And then lastly, again, workforce development and some of the things that we're doing. So I'll be able to share some examples of how we're leveraging not only partnering with community-based organizations, but also partnering with the state, partnering with the feds to get some funding to be able to pilot some of these projects.

So in the area of stigma reduction, we know that that's always a challenge. With a district that as large as ours, we want to make sure that we can support in every way possible. One of the things that we've been really focusing in on is really working alongside parents and caregivers, students and staff to start developing and co-creating solutions. Right?

One of the things that in my previous roles--I was the Director of Mental Health--one of the first things I mentioned to my staff, you need to get over your title and go into the community and ask for answers and seek answers. Right? Too often as individuals with a bunch of letters after our names, we walk into communities with a space of privilege and with a mindset that we can fix things. And so we really need to shift that paradigm and it really starts to address the stigma reduction.

So what we've been able to do is really focus on parent empowerment, and we've developed parent academies that have been extremely successful in delivering some of that work for our parents and caregivers.

One workshop that we've developed a few years ago was really a promising practice, recognizing that not all evidence-based practices are anchored around communities of color or diverse communities. So it was an opportunity to develop what we called a workshop, resilient families. And it was really, again, developed in partnership with the community that we served.

Secondly, when we talk about peer, peer-to-peer, peer empowerment, one of the things that over the last couple years is we've been able to launch a peer mental health youth symposium. We just did our second round of it back in late April, right before to kick off Mental Health Awareness Month.

And we had close to 500 students show up on a Saturday, on a Saturday to really talk about mental health and what they're doing in their communities to promote that. And it's a fantastic opportunity that I really welcome districts out in California to be able to figure how to either work together with other districts to do such things.

Lastly, when we talk about staff, I know it's been mentioned already, but one of the things that we've been launching, and this is our second year, is looking at how do we build the capacities of staff because we want to make sure that we just don't give another mandate like it's been mentioned, but that we, like, we call this triple track learning, so that not only we build the capacities of staff, the parents, and the students.

So in September, we do a whole round. All schools, all staff, parents and caregivers and students will be going through a presentation and workshops around suicide prevention and awareness to acknowledge the month. Moving along, I was talking about access earlier as well. So one of the things that we've been trying to do in partnership with, with LACOE, with Kim and other colleagues at the county is really being able to expand our telemental health project.

And so, you know, when we talk about access, I know, maybe ten years ago a lot of our mental health colleagues would have been like, scoffed at the idea of telehealth. But really, I think the pandemic has really kind of forced us and kind of to see the benefits of embracing technology as an avenue to really promote mental health and access.

One of the other projects that I really am very proud of is that we do have our own psychiatric emergency response team that provides support to students that are in a crisis, either because they might harm themselves or others. Obviously, I'm saying that as a district as big as ours, we have the privilege to be able to do that, and we've invested in those resources, but, again, thinking outside of the box is my recommendation as far as districts.

Maybe districts can come together, maybe they can work with the County Office of Ed to come up with ideas and solutions to really develop homegrown ideas that are going to meet the needs of the students and families. Because what we found was that we have staff that have been trained to work with children and assess children in psychiatric emergencies, and oftentimes when we rely on other county entities, they may have the training, but they also, they're supporting the entire county, right?

So we want to make sure that when we grew this program, it really allowed us to solve solutions or create solutions for some problems that we were experiencing. Lastly and quickly here, we talked about workforce development and kind of some of the challenges.

Again, really encouraging districts to really be able to look at what are the state funding opportunities? As a district, we were fortunate to also just receive the Wellness Coach Grant, and so we're really looking at what I like to say, diversify the mental health or behavioral health team. I think that's really what it comes down to, that I think everyone has a role. There's a diverse set, not only racial and ethnic, but also from a lived experience or professionalism. Right?

So, meaning, like, we could have peers, we could have parents, we could have, you know, the psychiatrist, the therapist, but we really need a diverse--that team needs to be diverse, and so we're really leveraging some state dollars that were just awarded to us to really do that work. So with that, I'll thank you for the opportunity and I'll hand it back to you.

Thank you. Yeah, I really appreciate all of you coming here, and I, you know, I have a lot of questions of my own, but I want to make sure that our audience has an opportunity to ask questions, but as I have done for all the other speakers, things that stand out for me is what you said, which is really interesting and critical, and it's very specific way, reducing the mindset of we're here to fix things and instead empowering those that are around us to help themselves, and parent empowerment, which is key in our communities.

And I think that creating programs where they're included, as the word was used earlier, there's buy-in from our community members and parents that want to make it better. I also know that when I talk about telehealth, which is important, and you're saying that you're finding success, we didn't use this prior to the pandemic.

And lately I've been talking to some teachers, and I continue to hear things like parents don't show up to parent-teacher conferences, and I want to offer to those school districts and everyone that hears me is that we should be offering parent-teacher conference online through Zoom because then we would have 100 percent participation.

Many parents don't attend, not because they don't care about their children, but because they have to go to work and they don't have childcare and the issues are massive, but we offer the opportunity to go to a parent-teacher conference. Online, I can assure you we would almost have 100 percent participation.

So, you know, not only in your field, but I've heard it throughout in many fields, that just access on Zoom and not being able to attend personally always yields bigger successes. So thank you for all the information, and again, I want to make sure that our audience has time to come up and ask questions, so I hope they were writing their questions down.

I also want to, again, thank my colleagues who were up and down the state who belonged to the Select Committee and they're watching online and all those that couldn't make it, again, across the state. This link will be on our website so they could view it or get the information and contacts if they need it.

But I am going to invite our audience members at this time. If you have any questions, you can line up behind the podium and ask your question on the microphone, and we will do our very best to answer your questions. Anyone? Thank you, Ms. Wu. And we all have approximately one minute per speaker to ask a question. Thank you.

Online they want to hear her. Yeah.

We're just going to adjust a little. We're going to have the young ladies move to the side and we'll just use the first microphone, if that's okay. Thank you for being flexible.

Is this okay? Sounds like it. Hi, everyone. My name is Cindy Wu. I'm a board member with Mountain View School District here in El Monte, in South El Monte. First of all, I really appreciate the Senator for inviting me here personally and also be a part of this conversation.

And this is a conversation I'm very passionate about, as I was previously a doctor student for psychology, and so I was a member of American Psychology Association. And Mountain View School District is actually a leader in community schools. We recently received eight grants for community school for all of our eight schools, which is quite amazing.

My question is that just when I'm listening to some of the things that you shared, it touches me because, and I'm wondering, asking all the panelists if there's any conversation around conscious or unconscious training from both, from a staff perspective. The reason why is because I'm also the founder of Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Coalition.

And not too long ago, I had a parent in Northern Los Angeles County, another district, reach out to me. Her child was bullied for about a year and a half. Racial slurs being said loudly throughout the school for a year and a half. What ended up occurring is that this child, nine-year-old child, was beaten up, was arm choked, ended up in the hospital by ten kids. The mother also suffered tremendous mental health issues because she thought her son was going to die and they couldn't sleep for weeks and months. She didn't eat, she didn't drink. She would just--

You have 30 seconds. Sorry

So thank you very much. So just wondering if you have, you know, if there are any conversation that you heard about regards to conscious and unconscious bias training. And I just want to end with this: it was also, racial slurs was also said and also was bullied by the administrators on that campus site.

Anyone want to take that question?

I could address that. So the YWCA, our mission statement is to eliminate racism and empower women. So that's a lot of the work I do now for the agency is developing our racial and social justice programming. So I work really closely with our youth specialists.

And so that trauma prevention program I mentioned, we've been able to, you know, interface with the youth and really talk about anti-bullying and really racial and social justice, and so bring a lot of those internal components we work on with our staff to that more age-appropriate youth discussion.

So it's definitely something that I know we have been trying to do more of and just looking for different ways to get it out into the community. That's some of the work we did with LACOE and their family. They have a family resource program for those that have youth that are system-involved. And so that was a presentation was about racial and social justice and advocacy and really looking at that. So I know we have some resources to offer if you wanted to connect, and we can talk about that.

Thank you, and Cindy, we'll make sure you get that information.

Thank you.

Next guest. You have one minute for your comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Can you hear me? There? Hi, my name is Lisette Mendez Garcia. I'm a board member for the El Monte City School District, but I'm also a school psychologist, and for the last three years, a special education program administrator. So my comments recommendation is coming as a public school employee.

I just came from the California MTSS conference in Anaheim. I was just there yesterday. It's time, right? There are so many recommendations regarding training that our staff need, planning time, time to look at data. There's not enough time. And I'm just going to give you an example.

Where I work, we have 186 work days, 180 student school days, right? Only two of those are dedicated PD days. The other four are teacher prep days, right? And they're using that time to lesson plan, to do grading. So there's a huge barrier of just finding the time to meet with teachers.

Depending on your district, different districts have different contracts regarding the times that you can meet with teachers, when you can hold meetings with parents. Sometimes you're not allowed to have a meeting before school or after school. It has to be during teacher contract time. So that can be a barrier. So that's just something.

A recommendation I have is collecting data to really see across California the amount of time, on average, that teachers have for PD, for how many times a school team is able to meet to discuss MTSS. There's not even time to even sit down to talk about your MTSS framework because once school starts, you're riding the bus, you're building it, and there's a flat tire already. So--

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone want to just make a comment?

I was in Monrovia Unified School District as an administrator, and it took me about ten years to get the bargaining unit to change and to look at those kinds of restrictions, so I know that exists. And in some districts we're moving forward, I think, in a positive way by having more time.

But there's a lot of districts that still see that PD time, planning time, all those things outside of the, you know, and having that within the contract should be included. And I just applaud you for bringing that forward because it's really important that we look at that too in regards to student mental health.

And thank you for that comment and I know for us, I mean, it's maybe an idea we need to explore. Do we, you know, have a bill policy on making more hours available? And I know we don't like mandates. I'm, you know, a teacher as well, administrator at one point, but I think it's necessary.

We really want to change the conversation and really tackle the issue that is really plauging our kids. We do need the time. I recognize that because as a teacher you're going to, you're struggling just to do lesson planning and report cards that we don't think of the psychological impact on kids. So thank you for bringing that up and I'll keep it for a bill idea next year. Thank you. And you wanted to make a comment as well?

I was going to say the same thing as you were. Just that it's a--thank you for bringing it forward, and it's very important, again, just to make sure that even if we do have a, if the time is provided, the caseloads are so high that it has to be to that ratio. I think that's something that you need to, like, you know, just overall, like Legislator needs to be aware of as well because the time is limited even with the high caseloads.

Thank you. Next guest.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Dr. Sabrina Bow. I'm a trustee for the Unified School District. I'm also a public school administrator and a parent of an elementary student receiving counseling services. So first I wanted to share some appreciations and then I have a question about data. I really appreciate, Mr. Hicks, your shout out to Azusa with the work that we're doing in our community, with families in schools and sort of the intergenerational approach.

I can see the impact that the community, school models, and community circles are having with my child's, with my own child and how she's able to problem-solve and build resiliency. So I can see it as a parent and I'm so grateful to help amplify that message of success from my position as a school board member. I also have a question around kind of a larger system of analysis. Right?

As we roll out initiatives, and there are many things to do in many pockets. I'm wondering if there is already an initiative to look at from a state perspective, the efficacy of mental health intervention programs vis-à-vis, student discipline, suspension, and expulsion rates. Right.

And I know that's just one very, that's one slice, but we also know that that suspension and expulsion rate is something that's on our dashboard. And so as an administrator and also as a trustee, I wonder if there's something already in the works to look at that specifically.

Well, I'll share a little bit of what I do know. It's a topic that comes up very often and I know Assembly member Blanca Rubio passed a bill a few years back where kids were being suspended at the age of five and six for behavior issues.

And at that time, I mean, it's really important that we recognize that children are being children and growing up. If you're being suspended at six, seven, eight, it just becomes a bigger issue later in life. So there's been several bills that have been attempted and people feel differently about different things, but it's a topic that comes up. There's been several bills. I don't have the information here, but I will certainly reach out and with the information on that, if you have anything to share, please feel free.

I would say that isolation has never, research-wise, has ever worked to change behavior. So when you suspend a kid or expel a kid and not have a place for them to go or a transition back in, which is--we're doing that more with restorative practices and things like that to really help them understand and have that as a learning moment and not let that behavior define them.

And so there's been a lot of work on the ground level as well as legislatively to not overly suspend because, you know, my experience has taught me that administrators see that as the discipline approach rather than a really preventative approach or a way of using it as an opportunity for a child to grow through that.

And could I just add that I know the California Department of Education is also looking at that as more kids are being referred for non-public schools and residential treatment centers in the preschool age group. So it is something that they're looking at to see the data and to look at different things that, you know, they can do moving forward.

Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Next guest.

Good afternoon. My name is Xilonin Cruz-Gonzalez, and I represent Californians Together. We're a statewide coalition that champions the success of English learners across the state and just want to say, express appreciation to Senator Rubio for really talking about this issue.

When we look at the most impacted student groups across the state, immigrant newcomer students or students that come in often if they're asylee, refugees, unaccompanied minors, have many, many mental health needs, and often our systems and our school systems are not designed to support them.

And so I really appreciate you bringing up this issue, but I did want to just maybe ask a question about, in terms of the work that maybe you've done in your areas, where--have you been able to focus on immigrant newcomer students? What have you seen? What's been successful with them? It's something that's very important to our organization.

I'll jump right in and just say one of the best things has been that to find someone who is able to speak the same language or is culturally from the same place, location, where they were able to relate and be connected to that student.

And to be able to work with the family, to be able to engage them, to be able to move forward with whatever they need, but also working with the staff at the school site to understand the culture in itself of where they're coming from and not thinking that the student who's sitting in from 9th grade coming--and I'll speak from my experience--coming from Armenia who doesn't speak Armenian, is acting out because he has behavior issues or is intellectually disabled in that sense, but working towards more of, like, understanding and facilitating.

But I think and working and parents talking to administrators and to different outlets in the community resources to be able to find those mentors or those people that they could be the conduit to help those parents and the student in the school systems.

Well, and I'll share from my own personal experience; I think most of you know my story. I have a twin brother who didn't do very well because he was a Spanish speaker. At the time he was diagnosed in terms of his academic ability, and because he didn't speak the language, he was deemed back in the seventies--forgive the expression, but we all know they used it--'mentally retarded.'

They told my mother that he would never learn and really put him in a special ed school with severely handicapped children and he never really succeeded in his academic trajectory, dropped out of school, and so we know how important it is to ensure that we have culturally competent support system and education.

And so I think I heard all of you up here at one point or another talk about just that culturally competent education, but also whatever support system that we provide, it has to be very specific to who we're servicing. So thank you for your comment. Yes. Our next guest.

Good afternoon. Thank you to all the respective experts in their fields that are here today. My name is Hector Delgado, and I've had the honor and privilege of working with the City of South El Monte. Also as an educator, I'm currently the Dropout Prevention Director at one of our local high schools, working with our most at-promise youth. Also, my background has been working with homeless and foster youth/children, incarcerated youth, and victims of domestic violence.

So the holistic approach that you guys have talked about, I've lived it for the last 25 years, and I applaud you for the work and the effort that goes in. Now I'm going to play a little bit of devil's advocate with respect to our MTSS system, our access for services, our healing circles, our different workshops. With all the different services, how do we implement accountability without necessarily giving everyone or every one of our students that might have an issue, a mental health issue or crisis a pass?

Great question. Anyone want to take that?

I will. So one of the things we do with the California Association of School Psychologists is also educating that every child, I mean, when we look at a child, when they're having these issues, it's sometimes just a child being a child in itself and not having it to escalate it in the different levels of being able to, you know, learning those resiliency skills and being able to overcome and being able to, be able to cope with life issues in itself, but having that support in the background but empowering them in that sense.

Does that make sense? Like, I mean, it shouldn't actually, we were having this conversation the other day with one of, a couple of us in the CASP, and that's what it is. Every behavior does not mean it's an issue. It's a child who needs to fall to be able to get up, to be able to survive because we are giving them always the tools instead of them finding out about life experiences and being able to do what we did as kids back in the days in some way. Right? There's limits, but also looking from the background and empowering them to be able to do that. And I hear what you're saying in that sense.

Thank you. Thank you for your question. Next guest.

Hi. My name is Mary Morales. I'm a teacher, part of the Associated Pomona Teachers. I'm the Vice President, and I have two questions. My first question is if schools and districts take on this tremendous responsibility, how can we ensure that it will be fully funded, fully staffed, and have oversight and guarantee fiscal responsibility with the funds? If not, if we don't have those three things, the biggest issue I see is we're putting like a band-aid on a broken arm. It's wonderful.

Like, I've been a teacher 24 years, so I am very invested in what I do. But with more and more going on, more responsibility piled upon us, it's really difficult for us. So the second question is, how are we going to pay the professionals in the mental health fields who can truly help our students with these needs?

Funding is always huge in regards to getting LCSWs, getting MSWs. They're being paid better somewhere else, so we wind up with people stay there a year or two years, find a better job in the route. So that part is also another issue I see. And just really quickly, what you brought up about suspensions, I agree suspensions are not always the way, but maybe taking that suspension day and saying, how do we help this kid?

So instead of calling it a suspension, maybe a mental health day or a mental health hour where we're providing support for that child at that moment. I had my thumb broken by a four-year-old. So you may laugh and say, 'how could a four-year-old have broken your thumb?' Well, it happens.

And he was four and he was strong. He took on a police officer at one point, so, you know, he needed some time to figure out why was he doing this, and we need that funding. So thank you. Those are my questions.

Thank you for the question. Anyone want to jump in?

I think the count, those, the idea of Medi-Cal and that kind of funding is really important in regards to answering the problems, in regards to financing our schools. I think it's--when I did that program in my school district, we were bringing in a few $100,000 a year, and it's a small school district of 7,000 kids. So that was substantial. It hired a couple people to help with the needs.

But I think, too, the accountability has changed in regards to, since we had the Local Control Funding Formula and local control programs out there where we're looking at more than just a standardized test. Before 2012, that's how we evaluated schools. Now we evaluate them on multiple levels. Can we do better? Yes, we can.

And I think we can do things that some other states are doing in regards to measuring what we want and making sure we're getting what we need in regards to the services for kids. So I appreciate you bringing this forward.

Thank you, and I'll just add from the state, I never stopped pushing. There's so many educators in our state. You know, Mr. Portantino, who you all know is a Senator neighboring district, he's very committed. Him and I always either co-author bills, trying to get mental health services in our schools, and it's a challenge.

It will continue to be a little bit of a challenge, but I want to just bring us back to what Mr. Cisneros says. There's a lot of grant programs too, a lot of grant funding. And I think you said you were able to leverage some grants to take care of some of these issues, but not a solution. But no, we hear you, and we understand we need to invest more in our school system. So thank you for your comments. Next guest. Thank you.

Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Wei-Tsu Loh. I represent Associated Pomona Teachers, and I'm a school psychologist. I have been in education for 30 years and all these years working with special needs kids, the biggest thing I see is parents. How do we help the family? And we have a lot of money.

Pomona has eight elementary school sites given grants for community schools, three high schools. I just feel that the money is not spent very well and they're meeting only basic needs for our students. However, where are all parents? When these kids display behavior issues, it comes from the home, and we don't provide enough parent education.

And I know you guys talk about training teachers. Teachers are overwhelmed. Anybody can pretty much identify a kid having issues. The kids that are displaying issues, they're not even displaying little, you know, behavior issues. They're in crisis.

And so by the time--the teachers don't know what to do with them, and we have a lot, we have elementary school counselors at every site. But those counselors, you know, they're very sweet, very professional, but they're not even trained to deal with those situation because their training--I've gone through the training myself.

It's like, okay, you see the kids for therapy and all that. They never really talk about crisis. And so I think we really need, you know, I hope that you can help us maybe advocate for different kinds of trainings for teachers and counselors and school psychologists during their school, their graduate school, or the schooling that they do. So that's my comment. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, just real quickly, I just remember Mr. Cisneros was talking about the triple track learning ride where you take the education and you implement it with teachers, parent, and students. It's an holistic approach. But later on I want to continue to have this conversation.

We're running out of time, but I'm going to pick your brain, make sure that we figure out is it possible to implement it statewide and how can we support our school districts so they can follow suit. So I'm going to turn it over to Loretta. I think you had a comment.

We saw the same thing, and we now are offering online courses to beef up mental health services in schools, including crisis response, suicide assessments, and other kinds of things using techniques like motivational interviewing and everything like that. So the training in school counselors has changed over the years, and so that's--we're seeing by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

And so those things are happening to greater degrees in regards to training, but there also needs to be an understanding from administration to allow for support services, school psychologists, social workers, and counselors to be able to get off the job for the day, to get the training, because I hear it all the time.

They say, 'oh, I can't come to the conference, I can't come to the training.' So much happens during the day. So they don't allow poor folks away because they're so valuable. So they don't allow for them to go and get the training that they need to stay up to date with what their practice is and their scope of practice.

Thank you. Anybody else? Last comment?

Yeah, I would just say, like, the train-the-trainer models, I think, are very effective as far as, like you said, getting into the community. You know, finding a parent that feels just like you do has just as much ambition to see things change in their community. And maybe they become that residential kind of community expert and train the rest of the parents because sometimes those families don't want to come in and work with the system or the school system. So then I would also say leveraging technology.

I think there's a lot of virtual, online, self-paced courses that could be developed around that train-the-trainer model. So I think there is potential, but maybe they just haven't made it to Pomona yet.

Can I add one more thing?

Sure.

I also want to mention that whenever possible, it's great if the schools can teach the parents the exact same skills they are teaching their students. Right? So that's one of the things that we have done with our school social workers funded through the Mental Health Student Services Act, who are in 15 different districts. So we teach students a curriculum in the classroom and in small groups, and then we have parent workshops so that the parents can reinforce those skills.

Because I think when you're, what you may be experiencing are parents who really want to help their students but they don't know how. The skills that they have or the techniques they've tried have not worked, and so the more that we can do to teach them what we're trying to teach our students, similar to that triple track, right, we will all be more effective and they will feel more--that they're supporting their children better as well.

Could I just say one more thing? And also, like we're going to ask--we would ask our parents or our teachers and our students. I think asking the parents what they need is where to start initially because that's where you're going to find out which way to move forward, maybe just before implementing something.

Great comments. Thank you. And we have time for one more guest.

Afternoon, and thank you for inviting me. I'm Sonia Alvarado from the Ontario-Montclair School District, and I just wanted to give you guys a chat out. I'm really happy with everything that's going on. The school climate in our district has changed. I'm an alumni of our school, so when I went to school, it was very different from when my children go to school right now and as a community member.

And a lot of the stuff that you guys said has been implemented in our school district, and our school climate has changed and everybody has to buy in and be those leaders in their community, and working together, we're on our second round of community school community grants, and it has made a big difference for our parents being part of our school. So we're not blaming the parents for their child's behavior. We're working with them because, like you said, they're all kids. They all want to be kids.

They have to explore, they make mistakes, but we have to tell them it's a mistake. It's not because they're bad. I've been speaking to a couple of the teachers and they say, well, kids don't want to be snitches. I go, well, they're not snitches. You got to tell them they're leaders. Leaders don't snitch.

There's a difference between what you snitch and what you you tell the kids what is being leadership? If your friend tells you, I like this girl, I like this boy, that's snitching because they gave you something in confidence to not go and tell the whole school.

But if your peer tells you, you know, this kid has a knife in their backpack or my dad has a gun, I should bring it so you guys could see it, that's being a leader, telling an adult something that could potentially cause any harm. So it's just mindset. We have to continue to work on mindset.

We have to continue to fund our schools with parent education. We have an awesome parent leadership conference every year. We added two more during the year and we have an awesome parent center that we help our parents and teach them what we're teaching and teach them to be leaders in our community, to help our kids grow in our community. So I would say let's continue to do that work, getting the funding to work as a group and be leaders in our state.

Thank you so much. Well, thank you on that. We left off on a positive note, and I want to just thank all of you who came here personally to join us. It was a really critical conversation that we needed to have, and hopefully some of you are going back and implementing some of the strategies or what you heard here in your own districts, in your own homes with your own children, and want to thank all our colleagues who could not be here who are watching remotely, and all our guests that are also watching remotely. And this concludes the Senate Select Committee on School Climate and Student Safety. We are adjourned. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

That was so good.