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No one doubts that the COVID pandemic had immediate and residual effects on the world for nearly two years – none more so than school counselors, teachers and administrators who saw immediate impacts related to remote learning and now residual impacts affecting student mental health. 

Beaufort County Schools Student Behavior Coordinator Emily Bland said that with the pandemic, there became a “very obvious change, increase” in students needing mental health support and resources. 

“I do think there has been a very visible shift since coming back from COVID, since the pandemic, because our students were left alone. They were at home; they had to help their siblings; the unimaginable happened to some. Since the pandemic, there has been a big shift and we can’t ignore it. I don’t feel like we can ignore it anymore,” Bland said. 

With a growing need for mental health support, but little resources in the rural school district, Beaufort County Schools piloted a program called CharacterStrong in the 2024-2025 school year at Chocowinity Primary School in Chocowinity and P.S. Jones Middle School in Washington. 

CharacterStrong offers curricula and training aimed at improving student behavior, increasing safety and supporting mental health, their website shares. It provides “comprehensive and evidence-based solutions” to help students learn life skills necessary for life post-high school graduation. The curriculum is founded on “Eight Essential” character traits: patience, kindness, humility, respect, selflessness, forgiveness, commitment and honesty. It also teaches students about social-emotional skills like self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision making. 

The curriculum is designed to be low-burden for teachers and school counselors, because all of the lessons are already written. Teachers and/or school counselors will facilitate the lessons in classrooms. 

CharacterStrong divides students into three tiers. Every student begins at Tier 1 and receives foundational support. Students in Tier 2 require specific, targeted support. Tier 2 also requires school staff to identify students who may need additional support and create plans on how to intervene that address their behavior and monitor their progress. Students in Tier 3 have the greatest needs for mental health support and require personalized interventions and monitoring of their responses to intervention efforts. The monitoring system will help school staff keep track of which students will need more mental health support and services.

Bland said there’s not a set number of days a student has to reach before they advance to another tier. It depends on the student and their unique set of challenges. However, school staff need about four to six weeks worth of data before they can determine if intervention strategies are working. 

Bland said the goal of CharacterStrong in Beaufort County Schools is to help students effectively explore how they feel, why they feel certain emotions, have certain thoughts and communicate this to a teacher, school counselor or administrator. Too, she hopes CharacterStrong can help students feel safer in their environments. 

Lynn Whittington, principal of Chocowinity Primary School, added, “parents are so busy. They’re working a couple of jobs. They don’t have time to intentionally and explicitly teach the skills that we’re teaching, but they are so needed and we see that they’re needed in the classrooms.” 

Whittington continued to say that another goal of CharacterStrong is to teach students how to work together and empathize with one another – to think about how their actions and words can affect how fellow students feel. 

CharacterStrong will be implemented in Beaufort County public elementary and middle schools in the 2025-2026 school year. For high school students, school staff will attend training on how to respond to traumas experienced by most students. The training is provided by the North Carolina Center for Resilience & Learning. Both are being funded by grant money from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction for the next two years. 

CharacterStrong and training from the Center for Resilience & Learning are meant to supplement the support students would receive from a school counselor. 

At this time, Beaufort County Schools has an estimated 15 counselors. Bland said that an ideal number of counselors would be one for every 250 students and one social worker for every 500 students. 

School counselors work to help students achieve academic and social success in addition to advocating and promoting equity and access among students and creating school counseling programs that align with their school’s academic mission statement and improvement plan, the American School Counselor Association describes. 

At Chocowinity Primary, School Counselor Leslea Jones is responsible for handling DSS cases, reporting cases, handles attendance, overseeing 504 testing accommodations, overseeing modifications for students during testing, meeting with parents and students and visiting classrooms at least once a month. 

Traumas experienced most by Beaufort County School students include: incarcerated parents, abuse by family members, witnessing drug use and emotional abandonment. 

This can lead to depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. They can progress to a point where students need professional mental health services provided by a behavioral health facility. Alicia Vosburgh, principal of P.S. Jones Middle School, shared at the June 3 Beaufort County Board of Education meeting that seven P.S. Jones students required attention from a mental health facility during the 2024-2025 academic year. 

“Our kids have huge mental health issues,” Vosburgh told board members. 

These mental health issues can also lead to students taking their own lives. On Oct. 3, a P.S. Jones Middle School student took their own life, Vosburgh confirmed at the Board of Education meeting. She added that the school addressed 57 suicide ideations. 

The Beaufort County Health Department shared that within the last five years, 29 people have died by suicide in the county and another recorded 144 visits to the emergency department for treatment after an attempted suicide. Fifteen of the 144 occurred this year. They did not list an age range of the people. 

It is the school district’s hope that CharacterStrong and trauma-informed responses can help students talk through their thoughts and feelings with a professional before they consider a permanent end to the mental suffering they experience. 

Beaufort County Schools also uses an app called “Say Something” which was created by the Sandy Hook Promise. It is an anonymous reporting system that allows students, parents and school staff to submit secure anonymous safety concerns to help identify and intervene before someone hurts themselves or others, Sandy Hook Promise describes. 

Concerns are not just sent during school hours, Vosburg, Bland and Whittington said. They are sent at all hours of the day and night. School administrators respond to the message and reach out to parents asking them to check on their child. 

Too, laptops provided to students by the school district safely monitor their activity online. There are certain words and questions that, if they are searched online, will trigger a notification that is sent to the school principal, counselor and Director of Federal Programs and Student Support Services Dr. Tremaine Young. 

“A lot of times, the parents will say, ‘I’m with them; they’re okay.’ And we tell them to monitor them, keep their eyes on them, let them sleep in the same room with them for that night. Then the parent and the student have to come to school the next day and our counselor does a threat assessment to see what level of risk they are and then provides more support,” Whittington said. 

Bland added, “We want to make sure that we are responding to our students’ needs and helping them to be more successful in life.”