Student mental health is a top priority for western NC educators after Helene

It’s been nearly three weeks since Tropical Storm Helene hit western North Carolina, flooding homes, washing away roads and upending the rural mountain towns in its path. Many schools have been closed for normal operations while officials work to assess the damage and find ways to safely transport students.  

But throughout this period of upheaval, educators, counselors and volunteers have been working with kids and families to restore a sense of normalcy — if only for a few hours in the day.

Inside a classroom at Hardin Park Elementary School in Boone last week, school counselor Claire Jensen taught a small group of kids how to make paper journals.

“So when you untie your journal, you're going to turn to your first page, and you're going to set it down, and then you're going to draw your pictures in there of how you're feeling or what you're thinking," Jensen explains to the group. 

She wants the kids to use them at home to express themselves and process their emotions. 

This school has been operating as a much-needed childcare center while regular classes are canceled. But the teachers and staff here are doing more than just giving parents a break. Jensen says they’re helping these kids process the trauma of Helene. 

“We are trying to give them some strategies to help them with their big emotions and feelings," Jensen said. "One of the first days we did, like an activity where they drew a picture of what they were doing during the hurricane and how it impacted them.”

Some drew their houses full of water. Others, trees down in their neighborhoods.

The class also made fidget beads, which are like lanyards with beads you can slide up and down while taking deep breaths or repeating positive affirmations. 

Six-year-old Keeley Neely has been using it at home. She says the last couple of weeks have been horrible.

“My fidget, it will help me calm me down. And I play with it a lot," Neely said. "I practiced it yesterday, and it got even better and better.” 

Many of her classmates, like Arley Ruppard, say they’re feeling the same way.  

“A little bad," Ruppard said. "Because my Aunt Janelle and Uncle Brian's house live next to me, and I got scared because trees snapped in. One got in the garage, and Uncle Brian almost got hit by it.” 

These kids have seen and heard some scary things. Their usual routines have been totally disrupted, whether they’re not going to school or they’ve been displaced from their homes. 

Tripp Ake is a psychologist with Duke University Medical Center who specializes in child trauma. He says disasters like Helene fall under the category of “acute trauma,” which refers to a single incident that can have a big and lasting impact. 

“In any life-threatening event, for most of us, our brains are built for survival," Ake said. "And so you hear things like, people have responses like, flight, fight, freeze."

So it’s normal for these kids to feel stressed, anxious and scared for a while because they’re still facing some real problems.

"For right now, I think it's a matter of helping to teach calming, helping to teach coping skills," Ake said. 

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network released a whole host of resources after Helene hit. The tips include creating predictable schedules, and having conversations to answer questions and discuss feelings.  

“That will be a recipe for healing, if we can make that happen," he said. 

It sounds a lot like what’s happening at Hardin Park. 

In the field outside of the school last Thursday afternoon, older kids ran around playing kickball and volleyball. There was music, Italian ice cream and bounce houses. The event was organized by school staff who knew their students needed to see some familiar faces and have some time to just play. 

Assistant Director of Afterschool Programs Trevor Owens said there’s no sugarcoating what happened. 

“There's real families that really lost their homes, and there's families that have lost a lot of possessions. So that's been hard," Owens said. "But at least between 9 and 4 p.m. we can provide them a safe, normal space where they can be kids and have fun.”

It could be weeks before students here go back to school. And when they do, there will be some who can’t return to their old buildings due to flood damage. They might be missing some teachers and classmates who have moved.  

Even on the bus ride, they’ll see reminders of the damage and how their community has changed. But they might remember too, the way their community came together. 

Amy Diaz covers education for WFDD in partnership with Report For America. You can follow her on Twitter at @amydiaze.