When it comes to student mental health, the need is huge, but the budget? Not so much. If you’ve ever looked around your school and thought, “How am I supposed to support these students with so little to work with?”, this episode is for you. I’m sharing five practical, low-cost (or completely free) ways to address mental health needs on your campus.

Whether you’re part of a fully staffed counseling department or flying solo, the truth is, you don’t have to do this alone. These strategies aren’t about adding more to your plate; they’re about giving you tools you can have in your back pocket, so you’re not starting from scratch in the middle of a crisis. Having these tools ready will help you feel more confident and grounded when it matters most!

Resources Mentioned:

• Resource: Grief Bundle
• Resource: Digital Activities Mega Bundle
• Resource: Coping Skills Presentation
• Resource: NAMI
• Resource: Everfi- Mental Wellness Course (free)
• Podcast: Episode 154, How to Set Up a Peer Leader Program in Your School
• Podcast: Episode 119, From Off-Track to Graduation: Counselor Tips for Supporting At-Risk Students
• Podcast: Episode 102, Support Strategies for Meeting Your High School Students’ Mental Health Needs
• Leave your review for High School Counseling Conversations on Apple Podcasts

Connect with Lauren:

• Sign up for the free, 3-day prep for High School Counseling Job Interviews https://counselorclique.com/interviews
• Visit my TpT store https://counselorclique.com/shop
• Send me a DM on Instagram @counselorclique https://instagram.com/counselorclique
• Follow me on Facebook https://facebook.com/counselorclique
• Send me an email to lauren@counselorclique.com
• Join the Clique Collaborative http://cliquecollab.com

Full show notes on website: https://counselorclique.com/episode164

Mentioned in this episode:

Learn 3 powerful tips for interviewing for high school counseling jobs with confidence through this video series: https://counselorclique.com/interviews/

Mental Health Awareness Month is upon us. That is the

month of May. And so I figured it would be a timely episode to

talk about addressing mental health needs, and more

specifically, I want to talk about some low budget ways to

address mental health needs, because let's be real, you do

not have a huge budget to overhaul an entire mental health

program for your school, and I get that. I have some past

episodes on mental health that I will link to in the show notes,

but let's talk about some low budget ways to address mental

health needs in this week's episode.

You got into this profession to make a difference in your

students' lives, but you're spread thin by all the things

that keep getting added to your to do list. I can't create more

hours in the day, but I can invite you into my counselor

clique where you'll finally catch your breath. Come with me

as we unpack creative ideas and effective strategies that'll

help you be the counselor who leaves a lifelong impact on your

students. I'm Lauren Tingle, your high school counseling hype

girl, here to help you energize your school counseling program

and remind you of how much you love your job.

First, I want you to think about leaning on others in terms of

how you collaborate with them and use their gifts and

abilities, along with yours, to help students in their time of

need. So who are some people you could be leaning on here? Your

teachers, they don't really know what to look for right now with

your students. Maybe they want to help. They feel overwhelmed

by all of their classroom duties, so it's just like not on

the forefront of their mind because they don't know what to

do. They don't know how to help.

However, your teachers know your students really well. So I think

if you can help your teachers know what to look for, even just

in terms of, hey, this is how you notice that a student is

struggling with anxiety, depression, other mental health

issues. You're not asking them to diagnose. You're not asking

them to look at the student and say, Hey, I think you are

depressed. You should go see a counselor. Do not identify any

of those things if you do not have the education to do that.

I want you to think about giving some sort of training or maybe

just some quick tips to teachers for how to identify and how to

give some basic support for students who may be struggling

with mental health needs. And maybe that's solely walking them

down to see a counselor, but I don't want you to forget about

teachers being key players in identifying students and

connecting them to the appropriate resources.

Next, think about the people like the mental health counselor

who may be in your building, the school psychologist who may come

in for testing once a week, or the social worker who pops in

every other week to meet with some students. These are people

who are used to collaborating with others. They're used to

identifying needs with students and then helping them connect to

resources. They do what you do in a similar vein, and so I

don't want you to forget about how valuable of a resource they

can be.

Now, some of these people are only in your school building

every so often. They may not be there full time. They probably

don't know every student in the school, or a big chunk of them

like you do, but I want you to think about leaning on them for

their expertise. Could they give a presentation to those teachers

who need help identifying students? Could they be a

resource in the community or connect you to community

resources? Yeah, I think they could. So don't forget about

them in terms of what they could offer you for resources that are

just outside of the school building. But also if they would

be interested in doing something in the school building if

they're not completely overwhelmed by their own

caseloads and their own responsibilities. Maybe they

want more one on one time with students, and they want to do a

small group with you, or they want to come with you into a

classroom to do a lesson. You don't know until you ask. And so

don't forget about these people and their valuable expertise

with students' mental health needs, that's what they

specialize in, too.

And then this comes in terms of collaborating with others. I

just want you to keep this in the back of your mind. It's

important to set boundaries so that you don't burn out, because

I do think that when you are constantly working with these

students in crisis, yes, it's rewarding, because you really do

make a huge difference. Sometimes it's a life or death

difference, and you are so thankful that you were the right

person at the right time to talk to this student and help solve a

major crisis or avoid something even bigger happening. But a lot

of that, as we know, could send you into a burnout mode. So I

just want you to be aware of what your capacity is and be

able to refer out if that is outside of your scope. Do not

think that you have to be able to handle everything on your

I know we talk a lot about living in the gray. There isn't

own.

really a roadmap for deciding when to refer out. You're going

to need to consult with co-counselors, or someone at

your district level, or someone from your internship program,

like you need to have somebody that you can refer to and kind

of toss ideas back and forth, but also just hold you

accountable to not burning out. I know we don't get to choose

our caseload, and so maybe it feels impossible to really set

some strict boundaries on the students that you see. That's

not possible in a school setting, but just being aware of

what your personal and emotional boundaries might be, so that you

know, hey, I either need to go get counseling right now. I need

to take care of myself outside of the school day, or I need to

be able to refer out when this is outside of my scope.

Another big topic that I feel like comes up a lot is just

being able to provide that mental health support when you

do have limited access to other people. So I talked about who

those other people might be and how you could collaborate with

them. But what if you do not have them? What if you and your

students have limited access to outside therapists and outside

counselors? I think you never know until you ask. So if it is

an idea that could be put on the table of bringing in a mental

health counselor to your school full time or once or twice a

week like that, would be huge to give that access to those mental

health resources to students who can't go outside of the school

building and get them, or they don't have parents to drive them

there, or they don't have the means to pay for that.

I know a lot of times when we get those mental health supports

in the school, it is built on a sliding scale, and so it's

really affordable and really accessible to students. So if

you don't have that, I'd encourage you to make some waves

and ask. You will never know if it's even possible in your

school unless you ask.

A lot of times, what you're doing as a school counselor is

you're triaging. You are overwhelmed by the amount of

crises that are walking in your door, and you're dropping

everything to handle them. That is real life if you're finding

yourself completely overwhelmed by the mental health supports

that you need to create and put in place to care for all these

students, I think that's worth visiting and thinking about your

program in terms of, hey, it might be time to revamp

something.

Are all the crises that seem to be coming in, just walk ins that

interrupt your day? Are they parent calls asking to go check

on a student? Are you always putting out fires instead of

getting ahead of things? If you feel like you're always reacting

to really high need things, I think this is worth pausing to

look at, maybe problem solving at a department meeting, or if

it's just you kind of just starting to take note of what

your triaging looks like.

If it feels overwhelming, like it's interrupting your day, like

the mental health needs of your students are out of control,

we've got to change something. So whether that's doing some

more education on the front end and giving students the coping

skills that they need, or maybe that's just creating a system of

supports of how you refer out. Maybe you need to create the

roadmap that allows you some freedom to address mental health

needs in a more standard way.

I'm sure doctors have standards of care that they triage their

patients with. I haven't looked into that, and that's not my

background, but I'm just thinking there are systematic

ways that maybe you could send a student down a certain path if

they have these characteristics or these qualities, and these

are the resources you have within your means in your school

counseling program. And this is what you don't have, and this is

where you need to send them. If that hasn't been built out

already, maybe you need to pause and think about that if your

days are becoming super overwhelming because of mental

health needs.

I know that there are seasons where it can feel more like

that, or certain grade levels at certain times of the year, just

thinking with senior stress at the end of the year, or freshmen

transitioning into high school at the beginning of the year.

There are moments and pockets where these mental health needs

feel like they bubble up and kind of explode, and if you can

kind of get ahead of that with some of the proactive training

and educating and teaching the coping skills that students

need, I think that you're gonna see a more manageable caseload

as you're trying to address these things.

A lot of what I'm thinking about as I'm talking about addressing

mental health needs, is creating support systems and training

other people, even though this might not be their level of

expertise, but training them just to identify some key

factors that can help you be more proactive. So creating peer

support systems or training your administrators to notice warning

signs.

If you don't feel like you have the capacity or the margin to

create a whole new presentation, don't forget about the people

who probably have presentations prepared on stuff like this. Is

there someone in your district who does crisis training for

people at the district level, or people in schools? Is there some

interventionist somewhere who has already done some of these

presentations to parents? Is there a head of your crisis team

in the district? I know when we would have a student death,

there be a crisis team disseminated out to a school,

and honestly, it was maybe a key counselor from each school that

volunteered for a little bit and felt like they had the capacity

when it wasn't at their school, to go visit the middle school

and be the counselor who comes in and helps with some of that

grieving. I don't know who that is in your district, or if that

is even a thing, but if there's a person who's the point of

that, they've probably been trained or they've probably

trained other people on how to handle different crises.

Do you have a friend who's left school counseling, who has gone

into the field to get their LPC and now they work in private

practice? Honestly, they probably miss talking about

students, working with teachers, collaborating with a team. Bring

them in and have them do a presentation about warning

signs. If you have an intern, do not forget to use your intern.

Have them help you put together a research based yet interactive

presentation. Maybe they have the newest research on hand from

the classes they've been sitting in, and then you can add in the

real world examples, and y'all can do a presentation together

that would educate people.

Obviously, you're probably already, but it's worth

mentioning, leaning on your community based mental health

resources. Maybe that's Nami. Maybe you have a funeral home in

your neighborhood, or a hospice organization that does a lot of

educating around grief, because I feel like grief is a mental

health need that comes up a lot. Get a list from your social

workers of community resources that they are giving to families

and parents and students.

Have a list of those community resources on hand. I always like

to have a paper copy in my drawer, like a stack of them, to

hand out, whether that's a list that you've built out from your

own expertise and your own assimilation of what's out

there, or you have something from the United Way in your area

that literally lists out mental health needs, but also

everything from, you need food stamps, you need to contact WIC.

What do you do if you need to refer for an abusive

relationship? I mean, they have so many resources out there. And

instead of having to reinvent the wheel every single time

someone comes to you in a high need situation, and you are

having to research the best resource to give them, have

those on hand. And you know, I am a digital person, mostly

everything lives in my Google Drive, but this is something

that I would have paper copies of on hand at all times to hand

to a family or parent or student who needs it.

And then lastly, just have a few low budget, but high impact

resources on hand as you run into students with very specific

needs. Have some things ready to start a conversation with

students, maybe some grief conversation starters, or I have

a bunch of different like check in activities that can be used

on Google Drive or on a phone or a tablet. Most students are

gonna be able to pull that up really easily, and you can go

through it with them and start a conversation and let them

reflect. Whether that's on the stress that they're feeling, the

mindfulness skills or coping skills that they need to have in

practice, maybe it's just a mental health check in that

you're sending to your entire caseload to see who needs a

follow up conversation.

And then I know I've talked about them before, but EverFi

has a bunch of free resources, including a mental wellness kind

of course online that's totally free that students can use.

And so I just want to put those out there for some low budget or

even free resources to have on hand, because you're not gonna

be able to think straight when you're in the moment of crisis,

just like your students can't. And if we can have some low

budget ways to get ahead of the mental health needs that our

students have, then we are going to feel so much more confident

about serving this high need and very intense population.

It doesn't go away. It's never going to go away. It's probably

only going to rise, based on recent statistics and what we're

seeing in terms of trends in school with our students. But

you know what? It's where we get to make a huge impact as high

school counselors with our students. Who are the students

who come back to you and thank you after their time in high

school? The ones that you had real serious and intense, often,

conversations with about real issues in their lives. So don't

discount the work that you can do when you are thinking about

your students mental health needs. I know it can be

exhausting, but with the right tools on hand and just having

them at all times in your back pocket, you're going to be more

prepared.

And so maybe going into May's Mental Health Awareness Month,

all you're doing is equipping yourself and refilling your

toolkit with what you need to help students find success with

their mental health. Thanks for listening. I'll see you next

week.

Thanks for listening to today's episode of High School

Counseling Conversations. All the links I talked about today

can be found in the show notes and also at

counselorclique.com/podcast. Be sure to hit follow wherever you

listen to your podcast so that you never miss a new episode.

Connect with me over on Instagram. Feel free to send me

a DM @counselorclique, that's C, L, I, Q, U, E. I'll see you next

week.