Beyond the Report Card: Supporting a Child’s Mental Health with Cobb County School Social Workers
Student mental health is a topic we hear about often nowadays, but what does it really take to support a child’s well-being? While we often focus on parents and teachers, a child’s support system is much wider, extending to every adult they encounter throughout the school day. From the coach on the field to the bus driver and the front office staff, every relationship holds the potential to make a meaningful difference. In this blog post, we sit down with a special guest, Bethany Miller, Ed.S., LCSW, from Cobb County School Social Workers to explore how these often-overlooked connections, combined with the vital work of dedicated professionals, can create a powerful network of support for our students. Read on as we discover how we all play a role in a child’s mental health journey.
1. Could you start by telling us a little bit about what a school social worker does? What does a typical day look like for you?
“School Social Workers (SSW) focus on coordinating the efforts of schools, families, and communities to help students improve their social, emotional, and physical well-being in support of academic achievement. We seek to foster healthy development for students and their families to function and be productive in every phase of life. While we always say, “There is no typical day for a school social worker,” because we are constantly pivoting to triage needs as life presents to student families in the district’s 112 school buildings that the 35 Cobb SSWs are assigned to serve (2-4 schools each ).
A typical day might begin by participating in a multidisciplinary meeting including the school counselor, principal, special student services administrator, and psychologist to provide assessment and intervention for students impacted by behavioral concerns due to grief, illness, family stressors, homelessness, mental health diagnosis, abuse, lack of attendance or inconsistent school enrollment. SSWs truly embody the CCSD mission of One Team, One Goal, Student Success by helping remove barriers so that students can focus on learning!
SSWs regularly meet students individually and in small group counseling sessions to help build resiliency through positive coping skills to help increase their ability to be ready to learn in the classroom and navigate their developmental stages. We also provide the same psychoeducation to the parents to enable a consistent circle of support bridging between home and school which means we are often in parent meetings virtually, in person conferences, or home visits in addition to all modalities of communication including phone calls, texts, emails, and by using the Cobb Teaching and Learning System (CTLS) platform. SSWs routinely complete referrals for links to community resources to help parents access therapeutic, medical, safety, or economic assistance and we are very fortunate in Cobb to have a plethora of services and partners to support the needs of student families that support stability and well-being including the Cobb Schools Foundation to help remove barriers to success through their Family Stabilization Fund, which is community supported.
Other typical activities of a SSW include collaboration with community resources to stock food pantries and/or clothing closets at the local school site, collaborating with the Truancy Court Coordinators in our department, providing professional development to teachers such as restorative or trauma informed practices to help support student connection and relationships which further promotes educational engagement. We also participate in teams such as Response to Intervention (RTI) and Positive Behavior Intervention System (PBIS) to support district and school-wide improvement goals.”
2. What’s one practical, simple thing an adult (whether a teacher, parent, coach, etc.) can do today to create a more supportive environment for a child?
“Listen. Validate. Encourage. Guide. Structure. These five practical behaviors may not be simple on any given day, but they are the ingredients for a strong base for a child to grow and thrive! Being a trusted adult does not mean being a friend to a child, it means loving them where they are and providing the scaffolding for them to develop the skills that will lead to independent functioning after graduation and beyond. I often ask parents who are struggling, “Where do you want your child to be in 10 years? Are the actions being taken today supporting that goal?”
3. What are some of the biggest challenges schools and communities face when it comes to addressing student mental health?
“We as a country and a county (thanks in part to the mission of Cobb Collaborative!) have made tremendous strides in the last five to ten years recognizing and accepting that mental health is as important as physical health; a diagnosis of the brain or the body are critical and can be a matter of life or death that warrant immediate and appropriate intervention. When I joined the Cobb SSW department in 2005, it was rare to get a phone call from a parent concerned about their child’s mood or behavior. Now, parents reach out on a weekly basis for help in accessing mental healthcare not only for their child but also for themselves! Faculty and staff regularly make SSW referrals when they notice signs of depression or anxiety in student behavior and even students reach out for support for their peers, which has expounded with Sources of Strength growing throughout the district’s schools as a suicide prevention and mental health promotion program.
The greatest challenges schools and communities continue to face remain the same: social media/digital dysfunction along with limited access to care as insurance, cost, and long waiting lists or virtual only sessions at counseling agencies remain a barrier to needed mental healthcare.”
4. Looking ahead, what is one major change you would love to see implemented in our schools or community to better support students?
“There are so many evidenced-based programs and practices that have been implemented within CCSD to better support students such as the Expect Respect bullying prevention program, Communities in Schools serving in many buildings, the Check In-Check Out mentoring program as well as the Cobb Mentoring Matters program which is part of the SSW department. It is fantastic that the American Academy of Pediatrics has a policy for doctors to screen children for mental health, emotional, and behavioral indicators which is a change that has impacted our community to acknowledge and address student needs and while some would argue that schools would benefit from having licensed mental health providers on site, there are of course student privacy and boundary issues that warrant consideration. This really is a “million-dollar question” that we as advocates for mental wellness have grappled with for decades, but I would love to see more parents engaging actively in the family component of mental healthcare treatment. While there has been an increase of parents seeking support for their children, intervention needs to be endorsed by the whole family for effective healing and optimal functioning; too often parents appear to presume that similar to an individual ingesting an antibiotic to cure a disease that a individual counseling will cure mental health over a short-term “fix.”
5. How can we make sure that mental health support is equitable and accessible for all students, regardless of their background or family’s resources?
“Families are partners: no one is alone in this journey and we are here to make sure every child feels supported and has the tools to succeed! I would encourage anyone and everyone to say something to a mental health professional which includes school social workers, if they are concerned about something to ensure students have a full network of support! School social workers should be viewed as a bridge between the home, school, and community to strengthen the three-legged stool of stability. Everyone should also know that resources including mental healthcare can be found at www.FindHelpGA.org.”
6. Anything else you want to add?
“Cobb is a school district of excellence where all students succeed and that means we focus on the needs of each student; from literacy and math leadership to wellness and connection, we know that students can achieve when they are supported! It is so important for us all to balance academic expectations with students’ social-emotional needs—Cobb students are excelling on SAT, ACT, CCRPI, and Georgia Milestones, but mental wellness is essential for sustaining that growth!”
