CHADRON – Local high school students, CSC students, faculty, staff, administrators, and regional mental health professionals gathered in the Student Center Ballroom Wednesday for a Social Work conference about mental health with an emphasis on recovery. Seniors Emily Beye of Chadron and Sandra Arlt of Scottsbluff, Nebraska, organized the conference with Assistant Professor Becky Fernau. The annual conference has been hosted at Chadron State College for about two decades.
Ross Szabo, Wellness Director at the Geffen Academy at UCLA, was the keynote speaker. He shared his personal story about mental illness in his family that has been highlighted in his books and TED Talks.
He encouraged the audience to be proactive with mental health just like physical health.
“It is important to know your family history. When you share your story, it encourages others to share their stories. Express your internal life. It takes more strength to do that than keep it covered up,” Szabo said.
He said he hid his feelings and started drinking at age 11 until a suicide attempt in high school. He continued to struggle in college until he received a diagnosis and treatment from a professional.
“I didn’t talk about my feelings. I just made my friends laugh. Coping mechanisms are important. The longer you use a coping mechanism, the harder it gets to change. Young people are having a competition about being stressed out and they are learning it from adults,” Szabo said.
Dr. Tara Wilson, professor of Counselor Education, shared a statistic that indicates one in five rural residents may have a mental illness. She said rural areas also report a higher rate of death by suicide. A shortage of behavioral health professionals compounds these demographics.
Wilson pointed out that the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline and peer support groups in schools called Hope Squads are available to help.
Wilson provided inventory worksheets for attendees to complete in eight areas: physical, intellectual, emotional, social, occupational, financial, environmental, and spiritual.
“Give yourself kudos for what you are doing well, then work on those that need improvement,” Wilson said.
A panel discussion featured Joshua Harris, a CSC alum and licensed certified social worker from Rapid City, Chelsea Turner, a licensed student counselor with CSC, and Sonja Dressel, a licensed counselor with Project Strive. The three covered maintaining healthy boundaries, self-care, being aware of cultural differences, and treating all clients with dignity and respect.
Dr. Carrie Howton, director of the Human Services program at Western Nebraska Community College and LaTashia Ramirez of Scottsbluff, Nebraska, gave a team presentation which started with a case study of person in addiction. Audience members were given roles related to the person such as drug court team members and probation officers. Howton asked the attendees for suggested treatment approaches and after the responses Ramirez shared that she was the person described in the case study.
“LaTashia is using her lived experience to help others. Peer support provides someone to walk with the person in their recovery journey and show that recovery is possible,” Howton said. “Peer Support can really help win the battle of recovery.”
Howton said peer support helps connect the person in recovery with resources and other positive outcomes include increased engagement and retention in treatment plus better providing connections to the recovery community.
Applicants who want to become certified Peer Support Specialists must be able to prove that they have two years living in recovery. Supervision and training are also required.
Dr. Sandy Cook-Fong, a faculty member at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, focused her remarks on how to help children from hard places, including trauma from medical treatment as well as emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.
Multiple foster placements, separation from siblings, difficult divorces, disrupted adoptions can all be sources of behavioral and neurological trauma not visible to others.
“Kids from hard places live like they are threatened all the time. How do we disarm that fear? Use trauma-informed practices to create a safe environment. Help the child make connections through teams or church groups. Give the child schedules and routines,” Cook-Fong said.
Cook-Fong also described the 5-4-3-2-1 method to reduce anxiety. The grounding technique involves identifying five things a stressed person can see, four things they can touch, three things they can hear, two things they can smell, and one thing they can taste.
Speech therapist Jenilee Woltman of Hemingford, Nebraska, shared her story of raising twins and gave examples of how communication is linked to behavioral health.
Her young daughter, who has social pragmatic communication disorder and expressive language difficulty, wouldn’t answer a question asking her if she wanted to put her coat on because she got caught up in thinking about where the coat is from, which arm she should put in first, and other questions.
“Adults can help by describing the situation rather than asking a child with this disorder a direct question,” Woltman said.