[StBernard] St. Bernard schools treat student mental health worries

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard schools treat student mental health worries 
Posted: Monday, April 9, 2007 

Virtually every student at Chalmette High School, along with the principal,
teachers and staff, lost homes and material possessions to Hurricane
Katrina, causing physical and emotional trauma. 

Nineteen months later, the school system is rebounding with the help of a
team of mental health professionals.

The St. Bernard Unified School opened on the Chalmette High campus 11 weeks
after floodwaters receded. Enrollment dropped from approximately 8,800
systemwide to only 343 on one functional campus. 

Today, the Unified School ia a thing of the past and Chalmette High has
returned, its halls filled with an obvious camaraderie.

Teachers stop students between classes to ask how their parents, many of
whom attended the same school, are doing. Upperclassmen help younger
students navigate the halls, forgoing the traditional high school caste
system.

These scenes of relative normalcy belie the physical and emotional struggles
all St. Bernard residents have faced since Katrina. Students at Chalmette
High and nearby Andrew Jackson Elementary have been receiving help from
Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center mental health
professionals, a partnership made in an effort to heal wounds left behind in
Katrina's wake.

Husband-and-wife mental health professionals Drs. Joy and Howard Osofsky,
working in the New Orleans area for two decades, said their most important
work began in the days after the storm when they began volunteering services
to St. Bernard schools.

The Osofskys have since written grant proposals to secure funding, and
several organizations and individuals have helped pay for the program, but
LSUHSC spokeswoman Leslie Capo did not know how much money has been secured.

Despite the financial uncertainty, the partnership between the LSUHSC and
St. Bernard's recovering schools is serving as a pilot program that could be
expanded into other hurricane-affected districts, said State Superintendent
of Education Paul Pastorek. 


"After Katrina we knew we had to do what we could," Joy Osofsky said. "We
talked to (St. Bernard Parish Schools) Superintendent (Doris) Voitier while
we were still in Baton Rouge and came down to St. Bernard in September.
Doris asked us if we could work with all the kids who were returning."

The Osofskys and a team of about 20 associates began working with the first
responders in Orleans Parish immediately after the storm at the behest of
Mayor C. Ray Nagin, Howard Osofsky said. Their work led them to St. Bernard
where 100 percent of the first responders lost their homes and branched into
the schools, where Joy Osofsky said the majority of students and teachers
alike needed help.

To qualify for mental health help, an individual must show outward signs of
trauma - signs simmering just below the surface of most of the student
population, Joy Osofsky said.

"We immediately began screening for services," she said. "A high percentage
of the parents also qualified for services."

Symptoms such as trouble concentrating, anger control problems, anxiety as
the 2006 hurricane season approached, clinginess and irritability began
popping up in even the youngest students, the Osofskys said. Older students,
many who were without parental supervision, began displaying dangerous
risk-taking behaviors such as unsafe driving.

"We had a lot of adolescents who couldn't talk to their parents, sometimes
because their parents hadn't returned yet," Chalmette High principal Wayne
Warner said. "School was an anchor in their lives. These people (the
Osofskys) were godsends. There was so much to do considering we were
starting from nothing."

"The work of Howard and Joy Osofsky is a great example of how a local school
system can partner with community resources to address the needs of the
children," Pastorek said.

Howard Osofsky said the lifelong friendships formed in St. Bernard will keep
him and his wife in the parish for as long as their services are needed.

"Being able to work with the children in school really destigmatizes getting
mental health services," Joy Osofsky said. "Working with and coming to the
school has been wonderful.".