Canyons highlights ThriveTime, mental-health partnerships and youth academy as part of human-centered supports

Dr. Brian McGill, director overseeing student wellness and human-centered supports, briefed the school board Oct. 21 on progress implementing the district's strategic-plan priority he described as human-centered support. McGill summarized a five-part framework that included ThriveTime (a tier-1 life-skills curriculum), a consolidated district behavioral-support plan, expanded employee wellness and a continuum of student wellness services.

Why it matters: The presentation described several operational changes that affect staffing, service delivery and outside-provider partnerships that provide clinical mental-health services to students.

McGill said ThriveTime moved from pilot to district adoption; elementary schools are in their second full year of implementation and the district is collecting pre/post assessments to benchmark outcomes. He said a pattern emerged in pilot data showing third- and fourth-grade students scored lower on pre-assessments than other grade bands; staff attributed that pattern in part to pandemic-era disruptions in early-school socialization.

McGill also described a suite of services and partnerships. The district expanded telehealth services to all schools after a pilot and identified a new employee-assistance contract with Magellan Health that the district says offers broader services at lower cost. McGill listed district school-based mental health partners by name: Hopeful Beginnings, Project Connections, Odyssey House and Multicultural Counseling Center. He said those partnerships allow the district to refer students with parental permission to community therapists for restricted mental-health services; that approach is in part a response to a state change McGill cited as "HB 281," which requires a clearer separation between school counseling and treatment-level mental-health services.

Highlights McGill presented included: - A 60% reduction in the district's "safe school" incidents where more significant infractions were adjudicated to a higher-response level; McGill attributed the improvement to a combination of ThriveTime, coordinated behavioral coaching and the new youth academy unit that provides an on-site alternative for students with more serious infractions. - A 7% to 8% reduction in student self-reports of anxiety and depression on district climate surveys over successive years, which McGill described as preliminary but encouraging. - Expanded employee supports (telehealth, an EAP through Magellan and a wellness-coaching app) and increased maternity/paternity and other benefits in response to staff feedback.

Board members and administrators praised the coordinated approach. Board Member Amber (recorded in the transcript) credited shifts in instructional coaches' roles toward behavior intervention; Board Member Edel highlighted expansion of employee child-care sites for district staff and said the district had rapidly expanded capacity there.

McGill recommended continuing the current course while leaving flexibility for principals and school wellness teams to allocate training time and staff resources differently from year to year depending on local needs.

Ending: McGill said he plans to take presentation data to a legislative school-safety committee and to continue advocating for funding to reduce counselor-to-student ratios; staff will provide school-level pre/post ThriveTime benchmarking to principals and the board in the coming year.