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Pinnacle Partnerships outlines school mental‑health training, teen certification pilot at Brockton High
Summary
Pinnacle Partnerships presented to the Brockton School Committee’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Subcommittee on March 10, describing staff Mental Health First Aid training, a Teen Mental Health First Aid pilot that will certify about 41 students, digital resource guides in three languages and a medical‑debt relief referral pathway.
Kristy Glenn, founder of Pinnacle Partnerships, told the subcommittee on March 10 that her organization has partnered with Brockton Public Schools since 2020 to expand mental‑health supports for staff, students and families.
"I founded Pinnacle ... and being a partner with Brockton Public Schools is quite literally one of the joys of my career," Glenn said, describing a care map she uses to explain the dozens of services families often must manage when a child has mental‑health needs. She said the care map contains roughly "68 bubbles" representing clinical, educational and social services that can involve many agencies and providers.
The presentation highlighted three core offerings now active in the district: Youth Mental Health First Aid for staff, Teen Mental Health First Aid for students and a systems‑change simulation used for administrative teams. Glenn said Youth Mental Health First Aid sessions are about 6½ hours and may be delivered in split formats with pre‑work to accommodate school schedules.
Pinnacle and district staff said the Teen Mental Health First Aid pilot at Brockton High is running in four cohorts within health classes; Glenn said the pilot will result in about 41 certified students, drawn from peer mediators in grades 11–12. "They'll have an actual certification that they can put on their college applications," Glenn said, adding the students are learning how to recognize warning signs, ask important questions and connect classmates to adults and available resources.
The group also discussed outreach and multilingual access. Glenn said the resource guides handed out to subcommittee members are available in Spanish, Haitian Creole and Portuguese and that the material has been digitized behind a QR code and on both the Brockton schools website and Pinnacle's virtual cabinet. She described a medical‑debt relief pathway that includes drop‑in office hours at a local provider and referrals to Health Law Advocates to pursue billing corrections and debt reduction.
Committee members urged wider family outreach — recommending presentations to PTOs, PTAs, open houses and a short demonstration before the full school committee — and suggested recognizing certified students publicly to increase awareness. District staff and Pinnacle agreed to appear where invited.
The subcommittee asked for follow‑up details on training capacity and expansion plans; presenters said they hope to embed the Teen Mental Health First Aid curriculum into the high‑school health sequence and eventually scale elements of the work to middle and elementary schools.
The presentation concluded with agreement to circulate the digital resource link to committee members and to schedule additional appearances to boost family and community awareness.
