LEXINGTON — Joe Trolian said he believes early intervention with mental health and behavioral issues with children provides the best results.
“Every piece of research will tell you the earlier you intervene, the better your results,” said Trolian, executive director for the Richland County Mental Health and Recovery Services Board.
Trolian spoke at a recent Lexington Local Schools board meeting to explain a program being introduced into the high school and junior high buildings.
The program will provide two wellness coordinators from Catalyst Life Services in the schools for 20 hours each week. It’s provided at no cost to the school district.
“If we can get the kids where stress is really starting to bubble … a lot of times we can de-escalate people to the point where they’re able to just go back to class.
“Maybe they’re able to utilize maybe some quick technique that we taught them and do some deep breathing, focus on something else or have a conversation with the person that’s stressing them. Sometimes it’s as simple as just helping see the forest for the trees,” Trolian said.
It’s the same program that has been introduced into districts like Mansfield City Schools, Crestview, Plymouth-Shiloh and Shelby, he said.
“They will be able to provide that educational level, different types of management and support focus that’s needed. They can do group wellness programs. They can do individual wellness sessions. They’re also here for what we like to call pre-crisis,” Trolian said.
“A lot of times we get called to the schools because somebody’s in crisis. We have a student that is saying they’re gonna harm themselves or harm someone else.
“At that point, our immediate concern is we want that kid in the safest environment possible. We want to get them isolated and address those particular concerns. Most kids, they don’t come to school feeling that way that day,” he said.
Instead, he said, it’s a process that builds during the day.
“If we have folks that are trained to recognize some of those signs and symptoms we can do what’s called pre-crisis work. Keep the child in school where they have already have a supportive system and hopefully be able to de-escalate that crisis before it results in somebody having to be isolated,” Trolian said.
“But the staff that are here are also trained in crisis intervention. So they are able to be accessed immediately, where in the past it’s been, you call the crisis line. We send somebody out. They usually have to respond within an hour … a lot can happen in an hour,” he said.
“So we’re very excited to get this process started,” Trolian said.
The mental health director said the program is not just for students. He said it’s available to help faculty, administration and non-certified staff, such as bus drivers, custodians and cafeteria workers.
“We’ve done a lot of really good work with some of the school systems where they’ve actually brought them into some of the teachers’ team meetings to teach communication techniques or to frankly teach stress management, especially this time of year,” Trolian said.
“We want to be able to get in here and do whatever we can to help,” Trolian said.
Supt. Jeremy Secrist said the district welcomed the program.
“We’ve been talking about this for a period of time. As an administrative group, we’ve just seen major changes in us as colleagues, changes in behavior. We started talking about that we’ve got to be able to offer more to some of our students.
“Because while the discipline process is important, sometimes there needs to be follow up for certain types of discipline.
“We’ve had kids come to us and they they’re interested in creating a wellness and welcoming group. And what can we do? How does that have happen? The kids are much more open to it than adults. They’re kind of telling us, ‘Look, some of us are struggling and sometimes it’d be just be nice to have somebody talk to,'” Secrist said.
