DALLAS – When Gov. Greg Abbott unveiled his plan to make Texas school campuses safer, enhanced mental health screening and treatment was key.
He publicly praised Texas Tech Health Sciences Center’s Telemedicine Wellness Intervention Triage and Referral, or TWITR, Project, which provides access to psychiatric treatment to students who are at risk of injuring or harming themselves or others.
The program began in 2014. In four years, 400 students have been referred to it.
“Truthfully, teachers are very in tune with their students, so they know the ones who are troubling to them and may have trouble in class,” said Billy Philips, executive vice president for rural and community health at Texas Tech Health Sciences Center. Philips is also a professor of family and community medicine and public health.
Philips leads the TWITR project, which he says is in place in 10 school districts near Lubbock. The districts participating in the program are mostly rural and lack an adequate number of school counselors.
When students are referred to TWITR, the program sends a licensed, experienced professional counselor to the school as quickly as the situation warrants. The counselor meets with the student and parents and determines what the next step should be.
In more than half of the referrals, the TWITR counselor has suggested the student psychiatric telemedicine treatment.
“So, we don’t treat these students,” Philips said, “what we do is screen them, identify the ones that are troublesome, and connect them with the care systems that are available in the region and get them the help they need.”
Philips said 25 of the students who received psychiatric assistance were recommended to be removed from school. Some were arrested. Others needed hospitalization, meaning the TWITR project might have saved lives.
“We may have and I think we have but the negative is hard to prove,” Philips said. “What we know is that our aim is to find kids that need mental health services and help them get those services.”
Abbott’s school safety plan prioritizes expanding TWITR to an additional 10 school districts in the next school year. According to Abbott’s plan, a long-term goal for his office and the legislature is to identify $20 million to expand the program to all campuses across the state that need it.
Over the last few days of June, a conference in Irving organized by Campus Safety magazine brought together leading experts in preventing school violence. The discussion centered around both prevention and response.
“Mental health plays a very important role in all of this,” said Michael Yorio, president of SSI Guardian, a consulting firm that works with campuses across the nation to improve safety plans and responses.
Yorio spoke at the conference.
“No one can tell you there are three things that if you do at your school today you are absolutely safe,” he said. “It’s an ongoing, evolving threat. So, it’s about taking a comprehensive approach based on best practices and implementing this and then practicing those things.”
He added, “If we know what the clues and signs are, we can do a better job of stopping those events. And I’d much rather focus time, energy and resources on prevention rather than dealing with the aftermath.”