This video segment is from Restoring Hope, a TV series hosted on WHMB40 and serving the Indianapolis area. Crosswinds Counseling offers counseling services throughout Indiana.
Curtis: Deb Graf is joining us now. Deb is from Blackhawk Christian School in Fort Wayne and Deb you wear many hats there. You are the Director of Guidance, you’re the Middle School Assistant Principal, and you teach the internship class.
Deb: Yes.
Curtis: You have a lot of interactions with students from grades, basically 7-12. For those that don’t know Blackhawk Christian very well, it’s a private Christian school in Fort Wayne. Tell us a little bit about the school.
Deb: Sure. Blackhawk Christian School is like you said a private Christian school, and we have about 1,000 students from preschool – 12th grade. Our mission is preparing hearts and minds to serve Christ. We do that through academic excellence, a biblical foundation, and a Christ-centered community. The students have the added benefit of having their teachers as born-again believers who love and serve Jesus and who want the students to love and serve Jesus too. So we partner with parents to come alongside them and disciple their children in this same end.
Curtis: Let’s talk about coming alongside kids. Kids today, I don’t know how they do it. If I had grown up with the kind of technology in the world that we have right now – if I was 12, 13, 14 with a phone, I’m not sure how well I would’ve handled that. How are kids doing at Blackhawk? How are they handling all the pressure for this world, all the fast-paced change, all the technology? It’s such a different world from when we were kids.
Deb: Right. Very much so. We are trying to help them to learn to navigate that world in a Christ-centered way. Obviously, not everyone makes good choices.
Curtis: That’s not true of only kids. That’s adults too.
Deb: That’s true. So we allow students to have cell phones in 9th-12th grade because they need to learn to navigate that world. They are learning through technology. We have 1:1 technology in our school. So each one will have their own computer, have it through the whole day, some take it home. Middle school leaves it there at school. They have that available to them. We’re trying our best to help them to learn how to navigate the world while they’re in our care.
Curtis: I would assume that my next question goes to mostly your director of guidance role, but maybe it bleeds over into all. A couple of years ago you started partnering with Crosswinds Counseling. What kind of an impact has that made on some of the students that you’ve seen.
Deb: You know it has been a huge impact for our families who – where they have discovered that there’s a need for mental health counseling. Let’s face it counseling is expensive, and this is something that we offer to them. I have a real good pulse of what’s happening in the schools for the emotional and social needs of the students. We’ll navigate that by suggesting counseling. Some of them will come to us and say they would like to receive counseling, but it has opened up avenues where people can receive assistance in areas that we didn’t previously have.
Curtis: And you have seen some tremendous success stories through Crosswinds Counseling being in the building.
Deb: Yes, that’s correct. I’m the one who does the scheduling for that counseling. This is the fourth year of having that counseling in our school, and we just have seen, our current counselor has really helped students with anxiety, depression, grief counseling, suicidal ideations – all kinds of things that students are going through today. The goal is always to get them tools to help them to be able to navigate through life on their own without needing counseling, but until they can get to that point we have that available to them.
Curtis: Tell me about the stigma because obviously, teenagers can be cruel. They can certainly be concerned about what their peers are thinking of them. This idea of going to counseling seems like it would be -there would be a real mental hurdle to climb to get to the point where I’d be ok going to see a counselor. Has that been a challenge inside the school setting?
Deb: That’s a great question. I would say that it is getting easier for students. Some still have that same stigma that they do not want to see a counselor. They don’t want their peers knowing they’re seeing a counselor. They will seek counseling outside of the program that we have. There are others that are quite fine with that and have really grabbed on and are working hard to make changes in their life. I think the mental health world has done a really good job of trying to reduce that stigma that’s attached with counseling.
Curtis: If you were to speak to someone in your shoes in Indianapolis where we are being seen here, what would you say to them? If they express concern about bringing Crosswinds Counseling into a school setting or into a setting where they’re working with preteens and teenagers, what would you say to them to maybe ease some of their concerns?
Deb: I have seen nothing but good at Blackhawk Christian School. The counselors that we’ve had there have been wonderful to work with. What I see is a real willingness to not have counseling be a crutch for students, but to work them off of that and after a counseling time period – a time period when the counselor is in the building, he’ll come to me and say ok this child doesn’t need to see me next week. In fact, they don’t need to see me for three weeks because they’re doing so well. It’s always to kind of ween them off of that assistance and get to them to where they can function on their own.
Curtis: That’s awesome. Deb thank you so much for spending a few minutes with us today and sharing.