If a child is having trouble in school, it’s easy to attribute that to a single factor. Maybe the student doesn’t like math or maybe reading is intimidating. Failing to look at the bigger picture does a disservice to the student, said Kathy Poling, mental health specialist at Riverside Elementary School, part of Dublin City Schools (DCS), who suggests taking a wider view.

“A student struggling in school is rarely about just one thing,” Poling said. “Students don’t leave their problems at the door, they carry their experiences, their relationships and whatever else may be happening in their world with them, kind of like how they carry their backpacks. That all influences how they learn, how they behave and how they experience school.”

Poling is one of 25 teachers and staff members from DCS who have completed a “grow your own” school social worker program through The Ohio State University’s College of Social Work. Participants received a Master of Social Work after two years of coursework and field placements.

Beginning last fall, the program members were assigned to a Dublin school to serve as mental health specialists, joining 18 who were already working in the district. 

Formerly a paraprofessional, Poling now supports students with identified mental health needs. This goes beyond the role of a school counselor, said fellow program participant Patrick Callicotte.

“The role of the school counselor is to work with all students in the building, focusing on preventative work – what we call ‘tier one,’” said Callicotte, a former visual arts teacher who is now the mental health specialist at Indian Run Elementary School. “That lens focuses on equipping students with the skills and knowledge to prevent a mental health need from developing.

“Our role as mental health specialists moves into tier two and tier three,” he continued. “That’s a social-emotional need or a behavioral health need – that’s where we begin to work with students, whether in small groups or individually, to build skills and break down that barrier to education.”

“Last fall, we experienced an unusual number of crisis situations that put some of our new staff to the test, but despite the high stress, they’ve performed flawlessly and are already deep into the second semester,” said Tyler Wolfe, director of student wellness for DCS.

Both professionals saw firsthand the need for additional mental health support in their previous roles.

“You’d have a conversation with a kid and think, ‘Wow, this is a really important conversation this student is wanting to have with me,’” Callicotte said, “and then I also have four other first graders tugging on the back of my shirt and someone spilling paint across the room.”

Getting to focus on student mental health full-time is “magical,” Poling said.

“You’re changing narratives for kids about what their school experience has been,” she said. “How they’re accessing materials, how they’re socializing, how they’re getting resources. You’re building bridges.”

The fact that all their classmates were from the same school system and served in varying roles before entering the program was invaluable, Poling and Callicotte agreed.

“The wide range of roles that we came from has been an important piece,” Callicotte said. “We have school psychologists, paraprofessionals, art teachers, intervention specialists – we all came with a set of skills that, while they might not be in social work, they all apply to our work.”

“There are decades of experience in our group,” Poling said. “That’s decades of us getting to know the students in this district, the community of this district, each school in this district.”

This shared knowledge allows Poling, Callicotte and their program peers to better serve the students who need them. Callicotte is his school’s first full-time mental health specialist. Compared with two years ago, the school now has the staffing to see three times as many students.

“Some kids, historically, just don’t enjoy school,” he said. “Being a kid’s person can make a big impact. We get to see those smiling faces that light up when they see us as they walk through the door.”