As Newtown Middle School and High School students continue to re-orient to a new normal following challenges faced during the onset of COVID-19, many of them may find themselves feeling anything but.

So leaders at those two local schools are embracing the opportunity to participate in a grant-funded program bringing trained mental health and crisis intervenors to their respective facilities who are providing unique back-up to district counselors and social workers.

The program, “Teen Talk,” and its two counselors — Olivia Bucci, MSW at NMS and Wendy Chum, MSW at NHS — are part of a growing support agency called Kids In Crisis.

While that agency also provides wrapping services to some of the region’s most fragile young people with emergency shelter, crisis counseling, and community education programs at the forefront, the organization also provides frontline prevention and intervention similar to the benefits being received locally thanks to grants from Dorrie Carolan and her nonprofit CT Parent Connection (formerly Newtown Parent Connection or NPC).

The recognition of, and trained response to issues including domestic violence, mental health concerns, homelessness, substance abuse, economic difficulties and other critical challenges is a hallmark of the organization. Since its founding in 1978, Kids In Crisis has provided vital 24-hour services to more than 160,000 children and teens, and their families.

Additionally, its 24-hour Helpline is staffed with trained individuals, providing free, confidential phone and face-to-face intervention, counseling, and referrals. As a result of having Kids In Crisis counselors embedded locally, that service is also currently available to all NMS and NHS community students and families as well.

Carolan, whose Newtown-based nonprofit provides intervention and support for families grappling with substance use issues and loss, got to know the program at the same time as NHS Principal, Dr Kimberly Longobucco, when she was Dean of Students at Fairfield Ludlowe High School in Fairfield. At that time, Carolan was answering the call from communities outside Newtown looking for help addressing the growing epidemic of substance abuse, overdoses, and loss — primarily from opioids.

When Longobucco transitioned to lead NHS, Carolan said her nonprofit provided underwriting to bring the Kids In Crisis “Teen Talk” program there. With a track record of success at NHS, the next logical step was to try expanding access to the program to younger students.

“We are very excited to have been able to fund Kids in Crisis in the Middle School,” Carolan told The Newtown Bee.

“After a couple of successful years at the high school, I heard that the Middle School was looking to bring in the program but didn’t have funding allocated,” she explained. Due to the temporary closure of school as the pandemic took hold, Carolan said Parent Connection was unable to sponsor any community or in-school programs.

“So we re-allocated funds to bring Kids in Crisis to the middle school,” she said. “This support program is now available to all students there, whether they may be experiencing substance issues, depression, altercations with friends or family or other issues — the best part being the availability of support 24/7.”

From her impressive initial meeting with Managing Director and MSW Denise Qualey, Carolan says the program has proven to be very effective.

“I am so grateful to have been able to bring this to our community,” she added.

A Welcome Resource

Having already experienced the benefits of having the “resource rich” assets from Kids In Crisis in Fairfield, Longobucco said she sees Chum as an important asset to her team and the NHS community.

Chum said because she became integrated in the framework of support services at NHS, it quickly eliminated typical barriers that students, as well as parents and caregivers, experience when dealing with independent support agencies.

“Sometimes parents are hesitant to ask for help from unfamiliar agencies,” Chum said. “But knowing I’m part of the school community opens doors for them.”

Besides facilitating small talk groups with students, Chum and her NMS counterpart Bucci are available to respond to isolated incidents when individual students are having a rough day — or a crisis moment — and if other agency resources are needed, or on the occasion when a student calls the Help Line after hours or on the weekend, they immediately become involved in the follow-up.

On any given day during the school year, Chum may be carrying a case load in excess of 100 students.

Although she does not actively engage with all those students daily, she said, “I like to tell parents that I’m a bridge for kids who need support.”

And since Chum and Bucci work with more than a dozen other Teen Talk counselors, Longobucco said that in the event of a major crisis, the agency can immediately draw additional professional response to where it is needed.

Newtown’s Teen Talk counselors may address very basic concerns when they are facilitating small talk groups.

“Some may just want to know what mental health is,” Chum said. For others, she may be able to provide referrals to other programs such as Lighthouse for LGBTQ+ youths, or the “SafeTalk” program. SafeTalk utilizes interactive discussion and role plays to teach children how to recognize and respond to potentially dangerous situations — including bullies, strangers and inappropriate touch.

As students began returning to school following pandemic closures, Chum said she and Bucci immediately went to work “building resiliency, especially among those students facing anxiety.”

NMS Principal Tom Einhorn could not agree more.

“We know middle school age kids are facing a lot of stress,” he said, adding that with his students, working with Bucci in small groups helps reinforce the fact they are not alone, and that they have a trained adult who can serve as a sounding board.

“During the pandemic, students were more on their own when having to work out things from a social/emotional perspective, leaving many of them feeling isolated,” Einhorn said. “Thanks to having Olivia as part of the community, she is a big help working with them. And then they bring other friends. I find her involvement tremendously successful.”

Responding Positively

Giving credit to her students, Bucci said she finds many are “very self-aware.”

“I have kids coming to me and asking if I can help set up a therapist for them to see after school,” she said. “I have to say they have a keen sense of how to ask for help when they are dealing with difficulties. There are times when I’ve been in the counseling department and someone comes in and their counselor is not available, and they ask if they can talk to anyone, just to get something off their chest. That kind of self-awareness — asking for help when they need it is really helpful.”

For those who may be reticent to seek help, Bucci said it is important to “normalize” what they are feeling.

“Nobody is expected to go it alone, and there are a lot of resources in this school,” she said. “And because my students are randomly placed in my group, they may be feeling they have someone to go to outside their family for the first time. And they feel comfortable approaching me asking if they can talk privately about something outside of the group.”

The confidentiality Bucci and Chum bring is another big plus.

“There are a lot of components that make this program comforting,” Bucci added.

Referring to the Kids In Crisis staffers as Teen Talk counselors also reduces any stigma that could prevent the students or parents from seeking assistance. Another major benefit is monthly training and continuing education all the Teen Talk counselors receive.

More recently, several counselors reported spikes among their students around eating disorders, so Kids In Crisis made responding to that issue the subject of a monthly training session.

Einhorn said that immediate response to trending issues directly affecting his and Longobucco’s student populations is priceless.

“Olivia attends all our in-house counselor meetings, so she is able to understand what is going on, and she can step right in either with her own knowledge, or she can reach out to tap the added resources of her agency,” he said. “She is a tremendous resource for our building.”

Chum said working alongside other counselors and teachers is huge, and Longobucco agrees that level of integration is critical.

“She is an important service provider to the school, and she is able to do a lot of follow-up with parents when kids come onto her radar,” Longobucco said.

“It’s a nice dynamic where she is backed by an agency and all its resources that are available to our community because we are involved with this program,” she added. “And because Wendy has been so successful, we’re able to use this program to its full potential. I would recommend any school look into becoming involved — it’s worth the money, it’s worth the commitment, and it’s worth committing the space to know our kids are safer inside and outside of school because of Kids In Crisis.”

For more information about the agency and its programs, visit kidsincrisis.org.

Reach Editor John Voket at john@thebee.com.