Amy Kamm is the Director of Mental Health and Social and Emotional Learning for Gloucester Public Schools. Kamm speaks to Heather Atwood and Kory Curcuru about the comprehensive K-12 program she has created to address the mental health needs of students. Gloucester Schools Superintendent Ben Lummis describes this program as building skills that will last a student’s lifetime.
Heather Atwood:
We are speaking with Amy Kamm. She is the director of mental health and social and emotional learning in the Gloucester Public schools. Amy has created an ambitious and comprehensive K through 12 pilot program addressing mental health and social and emotional learning in the Gloucester Public Schools. Hi, Amy. How are you?
Amy Kamm:
Good. How are you?
Heather Atwood:
Good.
Amy Kamm:
Thank you for having me.
Heather Atwood:
Oh, it’s great to have you. Amy, could you start by describing how mental health and SEL, we will call it, were addressed in the Gloucester Public Schools in the past? What is this program doing? And why does that matter?
Amy Kamm:
Okay. So I will highlight with the new changes that we have in the district, and that will highlight what was being done in the past and what changes we need moving forward. As you know, the pandemic has shined a new light on mental health for youth. Our leadership and our school committee has really put mental health as a priority. If you listen to the school committee meetings, it’s always addresses one of their priority. And so I think that really helped repel my new position, which was the need to have a more uniformed approach to teaching kids skills around social emotional learning, and also making sure their mental health needs are addressed in a coordinated way. So I think it started really from the leadership and then the creation of my position this year. Oh, and we also have more infrastructure, which surprises parents when I tell them. We have 23 district clinical staff in Gloucester.
Kory Curcuru:
Oh wow.
Amy Kamm:
So we have 13 school adjustment counsels, seven psychologists and three BCBAs which are board certified. In addition, we have some interns, some master’s level interns. So we have a lot of infrastructure that we never had before. In terms of this new program, when I took this position, I really looked at what were the needs? What’s being done? And we adopted CASELs, which is collaborative for academic, social, emotional learning. They’re the premier and social, emotional learning nationwide. We adopted their five competencies, which are… I mean, which I love, so I can talk-
Kory Curcuru:
That’s fine. That’s why you’re here. Yeah.
Amy Kamm:
Self management skills, self-awareness, social awareness, relationship skills and healthy decision making. So those are the five core competencies that we believe every student needs to learn, and needs to be integrated throughout the school district. So in taking this position, I did some looking around and asking around. It seemed like we weren’t really having one consistent message that was developmental that built off each other. No program was done with fidelity. And so I think though we have pockets of really good work, there was not a developmental approach. So that’s where this problem comes in.
Kory Curcuru:
I’m just asking to be educated, Amy. So are you identifying students who are in crisis, or how does this work?
Amy Kamm:
Yeah. So if you think of a three tiered system, it’s called multi-tiered systems of support. Tier one is what every student gets.
Heather Atwood:
K through 12. Kindergarten, goes through 12th grade. Right?
Amy Kamm:
Actually, I say PK through 12 because we have a full program, but yeah-
Heather Atwood:
That’s new. That part is new. That it’s so comprehensive, right?
Amy Kamm:
That part is new.
Heather Atwood:
Okay. Sorry.
Amy Kamm:
I think we thought we were doing it more than we were doing this. So tier one is universal. It’s what every student gets. That is more when you think of curriculum and what general ed teachers are doing with the adjustment counselors in the classroom to teach these skills. Empathy, diversity, communication, problem solving, all these skills. And also really challenging thoughts that are distorted and mindfulness. So there’s a bunch of components. And then tier two are the kids that have elevated need, and may need more intensive services. So we’re providing that within this program we’re piloting, which is skill-based groups around CBT and mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy techniques and mindfulness. And then tier three is really acute crisis, which we’re really trying to focus on tier one and tier two more heavily, and enhance those supports so that we don’t get to tier three. The program is called trails. And so it has a tier one through three approach.
Heather Atwood:
I have the benefit of listening to you speak to the school committee, so I learned some of this in advance. You talked about why it was so important to identify kids before who are struggling, before they go into crisis.
Amy Kamm:
Right.
Heather Atwood:
Do you want to talk about that?
Amy Kamm:
Yes. One of my priorities is developing early identification and intervention tools, which is… I can talk later about, but we just got a grant for almost a hundred thousand dollars for universal screening. That identifies kids who are elevated on anxiety and maybe substance use. I mean, why we don’t want kids to reach acute level of need, is because usually that requires a more acute response, right? Which could be mental health screenings, hospitalizations, which causes a disruption in the education. And we don’t want that. We feel like if we teach kids skills earlier on and more consistently, that we can prevent a lot of that.
Heather Atwood:
And this grant, do you want to talk about the grant a little bit? The screening grant, because that’s so impressive.
Amy Kamm:
Yeah. Basically, people say, “There’s no therapist. There’s a year long therapy wait. There’s a crisis in the mental health.” I come from the mental health world previously. I don’t believe every kid needs a therapist. I felt like we needed to think creatively about partnering with community resources to address needs in the school. We have the kids for seven hours and I feel like we can do that. So I wrote two grants. One is the universal screening grant through Jessie. That allows us to implement a pilot. Again, I wanted PK through 12, but right now we’re starting at the high school. We gave out the GAD, which is generalized anxiety disorder and craft, which is a substance abuse screening. And then once those kids are identified, we’re offering them a range of supports. We have partnered with JRI children’s friend and project dementia, and we’re offering seven week skill groups, individual support with mental health clinicians from children’s friend, therapeutic yoga, substance abuse supports. And for the El students who we thought might not endorse typical screenings and there’s a language barrier, we are doing project adventure.
Kory Curcuru:
Amy, have you seen any difference in students this year once the mask restriction was lifted? Has it used anybody at all or is everyone still facing the same issues?
Amy Kamm:
I mean, again, I’m also trying to get much stronger in the district on data collection. I think we have a lot of qualitative data, so I could tell you that it seems better-worse. I’m not sure. I think what we’re seeing, if I look at trends this year, are more kids struggling with school avoidance, which is another area of priority for me and the district in terms of how we support kids struggling with anxiety, which has been a real shift this year.
Kory Curcuru:
That runs the gamut from pre-K through 12 as well?
Amy Kamm:
In looking at how we support struggling students, especially with anxiety, we have consulted. I got Lynn Lyons this year to consult with us in an ongoing way. She wrote the book, Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents. She has really helped. We meet with her consistently. It really has shifted how we work with kids struggling with anxiety. We are now very much focused on what is the skill that this child needs to develop? And how can we help develop that skill? Versus finding them a separate space. More avoidant or elimination strategies. It’s really not focused on the content of the anxiety, it’s focused on the process. So it’s been huge. It’s been a huge benefit I think.
Kory Curcuru:
Got you.
Heather Atwood:
And again, these are skills. To me this is a radical way of thinking about this, that your program is intentionally trying to create skills that these kids can take into life, to help them manage them in moments of their anxiety, which we could probably all use.
Amy Kamm:
Yeah. I mean, it’s definitely based in behavioral therapy, but it’s challenging your thoughts. It’s distorted thought processes, trying to analyze those, choose new behaviors, and really things… Yeah, things when I talk about it, it’s also like, “I needed that. I need that now.” catastrophizing, all in unthinking, rigid thinking, all these things that create barriers to
healthy decisions really, and behaviors.
Heather Atwood:
And giving them a language to imagine their thoughts or to contextualize their thoughts. Yeah.
Amy Kamm:
Right. Shared language amongst staff as well, in addressing this.
Heather Atwood:
Right. Right. The kindergartner who becomes a fifth grader will know the language because they’ve been going through this curriculum. Right? When they’re still talking about it in the sixth grade.
Amy Kamm:
Definitely.
Heather Atwood:
… in high school. Yeah.
Amy Kamm:
Yes.
Kory Curcuru:
How receptive have the parents been?
Amy Kamm:
To be honest, they might be learning about this right now.
Kory Curcuru:
It’s just in, folks. Yeah.
Amy Kamm:
To be honest, because of the pandemic, I feel like people are just fatigued with online stuff. Lynn Lyons was going to do in person for the parents. We do have an in-person. Kevin Hines is coming around mental health, April 5th and 6th to Gloucester, so we’re going to invite parents in, but I do not… There will be communication going home as in a routine way with the trails program. That’s a component of the program, but I’m not sure many parents are aware of what we’re doing, or trying to do.
Kory Curcuru:
And if they want to learn more, how would they go about doing that?
Amy Kamm:
I’m working on the website.
Kory Curcuru:
Oh, okay.
Amy Kamm:
Which if they look, it’ll say coming soon, but they can call me, (978) 491-6608 is my work number, or my email is akamm@gloucesterschools.com.
Heather Atwood:
And what would the website be called when that goes up?
Amy Kamm:
It’s under the school-
Heather Atwood:
Under Gloucester Schools.
Amy Kamm:
Yeah.
Heather Atwood:
I think you touched up upon this and I just want to ask one more time. I know you’re intentionally connecting with community partners in this work. Do you want to just go back into that a little bit? I know the Unity Group is one of the groups you work with, right?
Amy Kamm:
The universal screening was the one I had reviewed. The raise program, re-engaging all you to school, is a program I developed a long time ago actually, dropout prevention, but it’s been enhanced. I got a grant through [inaudible 00:12:44]. The [inaudible 00:12:46] grant. We are partnering with Unity to have kids who are having trouble or obstacles coming to school for whatever reason and are close to graduation, attend there. I’ve hired a full-time academic success coordinator who is there onsite with Unity. Then they can also access the psycho-educational groups that Unity offers. So it’s a win-win. And it’s an amazing space if we’ve ever been there.
Heather Atwood:
That’s-
Amy Kamm:
…like a home office-
Heather Atwood:
Right. That’s wonderful.
Amy Kamm:
Yes. It’s great.
Heather Atwood:
Well, Kory, more questions? Do you have another question for Amy?
Kory Curcuru:
No, that’s a lot. I mean, I’m waiting for the website to come then I’ll have a lot more questions. Yeah.
Heather Atwood:
Yeah. Yeah. No. It’s incredible work you’re doing. Again, it’s so comprehensive. Pre-K through 12th, so it becomes just another part of their curriculum, is so interesting.
Amy Kamm:
Yeah. And I just want to add. I mean, I do want to put it in a plug for my kids, the mental health ambassadors who did the Green Bandana Campaign.
Kory Curcuru:
Yes.
Amy Kamm:
They are also helping to spread the word around the importance of this work. So I think it’s so many layers of really giving kids a language, mental health literacy, advocating to decrease the stigma, increase access points for help, improve behaviors. So they’re doing all that work too. So they’re great. They’re great group.
Heather Atwood:
Well, we talked to Ethan Foreman about the Green Bandana Campaign. Can you just fill us in really quickly about what that is?
Amy Kamm:
Yes.
Heather Atwood:
Again.
Amy Kamm:
So last year I developed the mental health ambassador program out of necessity because I was one person and I felt like we needed to activate the youth voice. There was like 20 kids. This year we really were wanted to create a kickoff campaign that brought awareness and brought mental health back into light and into the conversation. Basically, we gave out probably a thousand bandanas already. We have pledge cards, which of course I don’t have one here, but it’s a pledge card with… basically, I’m going to bring a struggling peer to a trusted adult. There’s resources on the back. The kids were asked to tie the green bandanas to their backpack in a visual sign of solidarity. And so we did it at the high school, and now we’re in the middle. We ran out of bandanas last time we were at the middle school, but the kids gave them out at the middle school. And so that has been a really amazing campaign.
Kory Curcuru:
Yeah. And Amy, I actually saw students at Manchester Essex Regional High School with the green bandanas as well.
Heather Atwood:
Right?
Amy Kamm:
I stole it from college.
Kory Curcuru:
Oh yeah.
Amy Kamm:
It’s a college. I was looking at clubs and I was like, “Oh my God, I love that.” It’s usually a college initiative. We stole it. So we could steal it. That’s fine.
Heather Atwood:
All is fair in the name of mental health.
Amy Kamm:
Exactly.
Heather Atwood:
Right?
Amy Kamm:
It’s fair.
Heather Atwood:
Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Amy, for joining us and helping us understand this really important program.
Amy Kamm:
Thank you so much.
Kory Curcuru:
Thanks for your time, Amy.
Heather Atwood:
Right. And come back and tell us more anytime.
Kory Curcuru:
Yeah.
Amy Kamm:
Yes. Well, maybe Kevin Hines. Oh, can I say-
Heather Atwood:
Yes.
Amy Kamm:
So Kevin Hines, a mental health champion. He is coming on April 5th for community mental health and wellness event. I have 27 or 30 resource tables. At 5:30 or 6:30 he is presenting. Anyone is welcome. He had survived to jump off The Golden Gate Bridge and is just an amazing advocate-
Kory Curcuru:
Wow.
Amy Kamm:
It’s a story of hope. And then the next day he’s going to present to two assemblies at high school.
Kory Curcuru:
Amazing. Okay.
Amy Kamm:
So you’re welcome.
Heather Atwood:
Yeah. Thank you for reminding us about that. Maybe we’ll do a separate introduction to him at another time too. Yeah. Okay.
Amy Kamm:
Thank you.
Heather Atwood:
Thank you.
Amy Kamm:
Bye-bye.
