Student Mental Health
Providence
There is a growing youth mental health crisis in the United States, with more depression, anxiety, and trauma impacting young people, and especially youth of color and LGBTQ youth. In 2022, a coalition of Rhode Island pediatric and behavioral health organizations declared a Rhode Island State of Emergency in Child and Adolescent Mental Health. The State of Emergency noted not only the impact of the pandemic, but also that “the inequities that result from structural racism have contributed to disproportionate impacts on children from communities of color.”
Our Providence SCORE Community Research Team was particularly interested in measures that show:
The numbers and demographics of school-based mental health staff, and staff preparedness to respond to mental health problems;
Gaps in staffing and wage equity for school-based mental health staff;
The extent to which community partner organizations are serving student mental health needs;
The landscape of social-emotional learning in Providence schools.
See below for more information about the SCORE Student Mental Health goals and indicators, and click on the links to see available indicator data!
The SCORE Mental Health indicators are separated into four goal areas that envision robust school-based mental health supports for Providence Public School students:
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School-based mental health professionals are typically the first (and sometimes the only) resource for students who are dealing with trauma, experiencing depression or anxiety, or at risk of harming themselves or others. There are a host of benefits when schools have more mental health staff, but the number of mental health professionals and counselors in schools rarely meet recommended ratios.
The indicators in this goal area focus not only on having adequate numbers of school staff who can support students’ mental health but also on examining the extent to which mental health staff are representative of the student body (including staff of color and bilingual staff).
| Number | Indicator |
|---|---|
| 1 | Mental health support staff to student ratios. | 2 | # and % of bilingual mental health support staff and languages spoken. |
| 3 | Race and gender demographics for mental health support staff. |
| 4 | Student satisfaction with mental health support staff services provided and availability. |
| 5 | % of educators and administrators who feel they have received training to help them feel more confident to respond to students who are experiencing mental health problems. |
| 6 | % of educators and administrators who feel confident in their ability to respond to students with mental health problems. |
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As young people are facing increasing mental health struggles, school districts are challenged with shortages of mental health staff in the workforce. These shortages can lead to unreasonably high caseloads for mental health staff, and insufficient services for students who need them.
The indicators in this goal area focus on examining the mental health staff vacancies in Providence Public Schools and factors for successful recruitment.
| Number | Indicator | 7 | # and % of mental health support vacancies. |
|---|---|
| 8 | Demographics and experience levels for mental health support staff candidates. | 9 | Comparison of PPSD mental health support staff salaries with Providence, RI cost of living and salaries from comparable districts in southern New England. |
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Partnerships with community mental health professionals can play a crucial role in a school district’s ability to provide students with comprehensive mental health services.
The indicators in this goal area focus on understanding the landscape of partner organizations supporting students’ mental and social-emotional health, the volume of students they serve, and student and parent satisfaction with services provided.
| Number | Goal |
|---|---|
| 10 | Description of services, schools served, and programs provided by community partner organizations supporting students’ mental health needs. | 11 | # and % of students served by partner organizations supporting students' mental and social-emotional health, by school (at all levels) |
| 12 | Student satisfaction with resources and/or supports provided by partner organizations. | 13 | Parent satisfaction with communication about school-based mental health resources and supports. |
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Increasingly recognized as a key component of education, social-emotional learning (SEL) has been shown to have a range of academic and behavioral benefits. The Providence Public Schools website affirms the belief that students’ and adults’ SEL competencies are linked to a safe learning environment, equity and liberation, and access to high quality learning experiences.
The indicators in this goal area focus on training and support on social-emotional learning for educators, as well as SEL strategies that are built into the school day.
| Number | Indicator | 14 | Types and frequency of social-emotional learning strategies used during the school day. |
|---|---|
| 15 | Educational practices administrators feel their staff needs most support with. | 16 | % of educators satisfied with social-emotional learning professional development. |
| 17 | % of educators trained in social-emotional learning practices. |
| 18 | Frequency of and satisfaction with support and follow-up for educators on social-emotional learning practices. |
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Currently, the active indicator links represent data that is publicly available (i.e., enrollment data and SurveyWorks climate survey). However, in many cases, our community-identified indicators differ from those that are publicly available. We are working to request data that the school district collects but is not yet made public. As new data and visualizations are ready, we will add them to the SCOREcard.
Additionally, some of what community members have asked to be measured in the SCOREcard is, to the best of our knowledge, not currently being collected In these cases, this SCOREcard represents a call to action for the school system, in partnership with community organizations, to collect data in areas that matter to the community, and to make it publicly accessible. As we get access to more data, more indicators will be populated and our SCOREcard will be stronger.