Maggie Lo ‘23
Supporting the mental health of EA students looks similar to previous years with the counseling of psychologists, advisors, and form deans, but new implementations have also been added to EA’s 2021-2022 wellness program. The introduction of Chapel prayers and speeches oriented around mental illness, a more in depth application of the freshman seminar course, and the hiring of a new Upper School psychologist, Caroline Graham, are a couple of the ways that EA has expanded upon its system of protecting student mental health.
The Upper School psychologists, Nicole Chaikin and Graham, continue to “provide individual and group counseling support to address social, emotional, and behavioral needs,” according to the EA website. Chaikin shares, “We are always thinking about mental health and talking about it. We all take it very seriously. Our top priority is you all being okay and healthy and safe.”
Graham comments, “The most important thing for me is to try to make mental health more accessible, less stigmatized, more welcoming. My goal in doing a chapel talk was to put myself out there and say stop by. I want this to be something that students feel open to self-select and practice putting voice to their experience.”
The form dean and advisory programs have also been integral aspects of the mental health system at EA. Chaikin says, “You all have deans who are with you and who know you guys well. Having that dean mentorship is so important. There’s that background of knowledge, that there’s someone who is watching and who is invested in your health and development. We also are thoughtful about advisors and how we match kids to teachers.”
Alyson Kurz, Upper School Learning Specialist and Junior Form Dean, talks about her experience with supporting the mental health of students in her class. She comments, “Oftentimes what I try to do is get to whatever the root of the problem may be. Even though I am not a trained psychologist or licensed therapist in any way, I feel like I and all of the deans have a really good read on the kids in their class. If we need to, we can involve the school psychologists. We work really closely with them, not because we’re talking about kids behind their back, but because we really do want to be supportive.”
Anika Kakarla ‘23 also comments on the advisory system, saying, “As the years go on, I realize more and more that having an advisor isn’t only about academics or athletics; it’s also mental health. My advisor is there to listen and support me mentally, so I can perform the best in other areas of my life.”
The EA cares team also meets regularly to discuss how to best support student mental health. According to Chaikin, the CARES team includes “Mr. Letts, all the form deans, myself and Ms. Graham, Mrs. Wisniewski, Mrs. Hurst, Mr. Tate, Father Gavin, Dr. Holt, and one of the college counselors (they rotate through). We meet twice a cycle to talk and anything can be brought up… If there’s something that’s going on with a particular student, we just want everyone to be aware and to discuss how to support that person.”
Father Tim Gavin, Head Chaplain, and the Vestry have also made student mental health a priority. This year, there have been prayers dedicated to those struggling with mental illness during schoolwide Chapel services. Rachel Letts ‘22, member of the Vestry, shares, “I think that mental health has been a topic of increasing importance in our community, especially over the past few years, and it’s the job of the Vestry to highlight topics and issues that are important to our community. With September having been suicide prevention month, it was important to us to highlight that in Chapel through prayer.”
Chapel speeches are another way that mental health issues are brought to light. In September, Christy Rheam, Upper School Science teacher, spoke about her experiences with suicide and her daughter’s struggle with OCD. She had two overall intentions: one, to encourage those struggling to seek professional help, and two, to destigmatize talking about mental health.
Rheam emphasizes the importance of her speech, saying, “Suicide prevention is something that I think is incredibly important. We need to talk about mental health more, so it becomes more normalized and so that people who are struggling know that they can get help and that they are not alone. We have this great opportunity for people to tell their stories in Chapel, and it should be a common theme. We all have issues, we all struggle, so let’s make it really normal.”
The freshman seminar course has also evolved from its beginnings, which did not involve a concrete mental health curriculum. Chaikin explains, “As of last year, the course really started to become more fleshed out, but the pandemic interfered with some of the implementation of things. The course covers topics from plagiarism, social media, and diversity issues to mental health topics. That has been becoming more concretized and a larger part of the curriculum.”
Kakarla comments on her experience with the seminar class her freshman year, saying, “I think seminar brought up a lot of topics, especially on mental health, that needed to be talked about. It was also difficult though because there wasn’t a lot of time to talk about these really significant issues but our class also didn’t want to give up more time for seminar.”
The EA community has a wide range of opinions on how EA supports student mental health. Matthew Davis, Upper School Computer Science teacher, shares, “I think it’s great that a lot of kids are becoming more open to getting help and talking about mental health, but I also think that a lot of kids are relying too much on their peers rather than relying on professionals.”
Kakarla agrees, noting, “EA has all these programs and opportunities in place for mental health, but I’m not sure that students feel comfortable talking to adults about things yet. I think it’s hard for a kid to seek professional help at EA just because it is so stigmatized.”
Other members of the community believe that the culture at EA lends itself to stress and therefore higher needs for mental health support. Rheam emphasizes, “I think EA is a high stress environment. It’s really important that we have support for the ramifications of that because with high stress comes high anxiety and high mental health needs. We need to make sure that we are sharing the options with everyone and that all students have the ability to find somebody to talk to when they don’t know what to do.”