Adult mentors help students develop coping skills, deal with stress

In 2006, Beckie Luff quit her job as a teacher at Alta Mesa School to raise her four children. But Luff, of Redding, never forgot how many of her students struggled with behavioral and academic problems stemming from traumatic experiences and stresses at home.

When her kids went to school, she volunteered in their classrooms. Again, she saw students who had trouble expressing their emotions in a positive way, Luff said. Some act out, while others withdraw. She also saw more kids working through trauma since the Carr Fire in 2018 and the evacuations that followed.

So this fall, she decided to be a volunteer mentor, part of a program launched in September by Catalyst Mentoring.

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Students at five Shasta County schools are getting some extra support from adult mentors like Luff through Catalyst's program, which is intended to help children hone their coping skills and effectively deal with stress.

Teachers don’t always “have time to give students one-on-one attention when they have a classroom full of kids,” and school counselors have full plates, too, Luff said. That's where mentors step in and help.

Luff meets with three sixth-grade students on Wednesdays at Turtle Bay School. The school's counselors selected students they thought could use another positive adult figure in their life, she said.

A lot of what mentors do is listen, Luff said. She talks for a few minutes at the beginning of each session, explaining that week’s theme: Conflict resolution, managing emotional responses to stressful situations, use of positive thinking. 

The rest of the period, she facilitates while students talk.

The topic on Sept. 18 was valuing self. Students created affirmations for themselves and made positive comments about each other. Then they promised to repeat their affirmations to themselves daily.

A week later, students returned to the group to talk about how those affirmations affected them.

One student said she’d memorized them, and repeated them while she studied for a test, Luff said.

“She said she’d never studied for a test before," Luff said. 

When another student in the group said she’d forgotten there was a test coming up, the first offered to help her study. That was real progress, Luff said.

The program is, in part, a response to the large percentage of Shasta County students who score high on the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) tests, Catalyst Mentoring program director Jenna Berry said.

ACEs tests examine the number of serious stressful experiences people go through during childhood. High numbers of adverse experiences, like losing a parent or being physically or emotionally abused, can result in poor health and other problems in adulthood.

In 2012, a telephone survey during which 281 Shasta County residents completed the ACE questionnaire found scores almost double the national average.

Having at least one positive healthy relationship with an adult can really turn things around for children with a high ACEs score, Berry said.

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Prospective mentors don’t need to have a child in school, she said. Any community member can participate, but they must clear background checks and go to a mentor boot camp to take classes in child development and other topics.

Mentors work with two or three students at a time, meeting in groups during lunchtimes one day per week.

Turtle Bay School is in its fourth week of the program. Parsons Junior High School, PACE Academy and Boulder Creek School launched their mentor programs in September, and Mistletoe School starts later this month, Berry said.

Luff thinks all students, including those with low ACEs scores, can benefit from having mentors — in part because mentors serve a different purpose than teachers, she said.

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For some children, the mentor program offers a way to connect with other students as well.

The first week of school, Turtle Bay student Maddux came home “begging me to sign the permission slip” to join the mentor program, said his mother, Brandi Williamson.

While the 11-year-old is outgoing and has loving adults in his life, Williamson said she thinks the program is therapeutic for her son because he has “such a crazy blended family”: An adopted sister, a half-brother, a father who shares custody and a step-father at his mother’s home.

“I think the desire to belong to a group or be a part of something is in every kid’s heart,” she said. “(Maddux) recently started Boy Scouts, but at school he had no group. This gave him an opportunity to have a group.”

When Maddux broke his leg in a trampoline accident two weeks ago, his mentor called him at home to ask how he was doing. It made him feel missed. Williamson said.

“There’s nothing wrong with having lots of extra people love your kid,” she said.

Jessica Skropanic is features reporter for the Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. She covers lifestyle and entertainment stories, and weekly arts feature d.a.t.e.  Follow her on Twitter @RS_JSkropanic and on Facebook. Join Jessica in the Get Out! Nor Cal recreation Facebook group. To support and sustain this work, please subscribe today. Thank you.