It's Where I Am with Zandra Polard

Unknown Speaker 0:00
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Zandra Polard 0:43
Good morning Las Vegas. It's Zandra Pollard, it's where I am, the show that focuses on mental health and wellness. Thank you for tuning in to 91.5 jazz and more. Today, I have a special guest in the house and studio is Miss Katie, because the last name is a little tough for me, so I'm gonna have her help me out. Katie, What's your last name?

Unknown Speaker 1:14
My last name is Ordonez. Ordonez.

Zandra Polard 1:16
Thank you for coming in. Katie is a school counselor, yes, and she is here to explain to us the difference between a school counselor and a school psychologist. There's a major difference there, because most people think, Oh, they have a counselor there, you know, but you deal with different things. So can you please explain the difference?

Unknown Speaker 1:45
Absolutely, I would say the biggest difference is that school psychologists usually do a lot of testing for students that are being considered for like IEPs or special education programs. School psychologists also have a different level of training into or different type of training as to what to look for. In that regard, more diagnostic, a more diagnostic eye. Okay? School counselors are more social, emotional wellness, teaching coping skills, responding to crises, moments and more, I guess, regulation and just social, emotional wellness in general. Okay?

Zandra Polard 2:28
And so then the school counselor deals with what

Unknown Speaker 2:33
that's a little academic,

Zandra Polard 2:35
what's going on my friend is upset with me, like, what type of stuff? Well,

Unknown Speaker 2:39
that is all I've talked about today is my friend is upset with me, so that's a lot of it is in peer peer relationships, and especially in middle school, working through peer relationships and having those like restorative conversations when there's a conflict. Also, the school counselor, at least in my role, is a very social, emotional based role, so I'm not doing scheduling or academic focus. I'm working with the kids on their social, emotional wellness and and relationships and things. So that is

Zandra Polard 3:09
a little different, because a lot of times a school counselor is focused more on the academics. Is that, right?

Unknown Speaker 3:14
There are guidance counselors, oh, that's what they're called, guidance counselors, okay? Or credit counselors, I think is what we refer to ours as, okay.

Zandra Polard 3:24
That makes sense, okay, all right. Well, I'm so glad that you are in place at a school to help the students, to help our youth. Yes, and at your particular school, you have put into place something called the Hope Squad.

Unknown Speaker 3:39
Yes, tell

Zandra Polard 3:40
us about the Hope Squad.

Unknown Speaker 3:41
Oh, man. The Hope Squad is a really cool group. I am very lucky to have gotten this opportunity. The Hope Squad was founded by a principal in Utah who had just experienced a lot of suicide at his school. I thought you did this on your own, okay? Well, yes, at my our Okay, at our school, yes, I started our branch. That's kind of just like the gist of Hope Squad, where it comes from. The whole basis of the program is that peers nominate each other, or like students nominate each other to be members. So it's not just something they sign up for or something that staff picks the kids out for. Like the kids all vote for each other, and that's how we find our members. So the members that get nominated, we talk about how to look for people who are struggling in our community, and how to talk to them our community being the school, of course, and how to get them to go talk to an adult and kind of just help them get the resources they need. And the other side of that is we plan events and just try to keep the school community and environment positive and inclusive and uplifting for everybody. With the goal of suicide prevention. That's

Zandra Polard 5:01
cool. So do you notice that? Do you think that peers are more likely to open up with one another than to an adult? So that's why this Hope Squad exists, right?

Unknown Speaker 5:13
Yes, absolutely. They are way more likely to talk to each other, especially because the by the Hope Squad kids being trained, they kind of know what to listen for just in normal conversations that aren't necessarily a crisis conversation, if that makes sense. Okay. Um, and so I think having the Hope Squad kids is kind of like eyes and ears of the school is helpful in that regard. So

Zandra Polard 5:37
give me some examples. So if I'm a Hope Squad kid, what am I listening out for?

Unknown Speaker 5:44
Um, I would say we, I like to have, like something I like about our Hope Squad is as a very diverse group of kids from all types of different social groups outside of the Hope Squad. So they, we just kind of keep an eye on students who may not be acting normal. They're listening for people who are talking or even joking about just wanting to die or wanting to end their life or things like that. They're listening for, I feel like a lot of it's behavioral. So they're kind of watching also to just see how these people are acting. Are they

Zandra Polard 6:22
not being their normal, yeah?

Unknown Speaker 6:23
Are they like pulling away from the rest of the group? Are they just maybe, yeah? Are they dressing different? They acting different, that kind of thing.

Zandra Polard 6:31
You know, I noticed, especially this morning, because I'm in education as well. You know, when you greet the kids in the morning, you know, some of them, they need that Good morning,

Unknown Speaker 6:42
absolutely, you know.

Zandra Polard 6:44
I mean, they're coming from who knows what type of environment, and a lot of times their happiness doesn't kick in until they get around their friends. Absolutely,

Unknown Speaker 6:53
I agree with that. Yeah, their validation comes a lot from their

Zandra Polard 6:58
peers like that. Yeah. And so our role as adults is important as well in the school, because we want to make sure that we are sending off positive vibes. Yes, you know, giving them that energy, that smile, that greeting to start the day off, right? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 7:14
I agree. I love the morning duty for that reason, because I love just like, being like morning to everybody, because it's so important to make that connection help their day start off.

Zandra Polard 7:22
Yes, and you know, we have to put our stuff to the side so that we can be an example and a model for our youth. Yes, yeah, we can't be grumpy and say, Well, I didn't have my cup of coffee this morning, right? No, on your way to coffee, give a smile, exactly,

Unknown Speaker 7:40
and a cleaning that's what it's all about. And I implore all

Zandra Polard 7:43
of our listeners to do that as well. This morning. It's about, what about 740 in the morning? Maybe you're taking a drive. Maybe you're making Saturday morning breakfast, but let's take that time and say good morning to our family friends and start our day off in a wonderful way. All right, so back to suicide prevention. Yes, this serious issue in our country. You have some stats for us, especially in Nevada. What's going on in Nevada in terms of suicide, what are we looking at?

Unknown Speaker 8:23
So most recently, the Department of Health and Human Services did a study in 2020 I think the data was released in 2022 okay. There were a reported 632 suicides in Nevada. Wow. And I believe about 12% of those were between young adults and the youth, okay, both categories? Well, 12%

Zandra Polard 8:47
that's a large amount, yes. And you know, even just one is too much. Agree, yeah. So we have to make sure that we're focusing in on our youth early, right? I think Katie. I believe I heard it was, it's been some years, but I heard that there was a suicide attempt by like, an eight year old. Oh, yeah. Like, who's thinking of suicide at eight years old?

Unknown Speaker 9:14
I feel like in the news a lot, there's just it gets younger and younger the ages of kids, and it blows my mind to hear those words come out of somebody's mouth. Someone was talking to me about a second grader that was just talking about it, and that is crazy. Yeah, yeah. It just seems to be getting younger and younger. I feel like there's never an early enough opportunity even to talk to kids just about their mental health, not even bringing up the word suicide, but just checking in with them and teaching them about their feelings. Checking

Zandra Polard 9:46
in always got to make time to check in absolutely with your children, your friends, your family. You know it's the person you think is the strongest sometimes, and they could be at their weakest point, and you may not even. Realize it absolutely so learning about suicide prevention is super important to find those warning signs. So you mentioned earlier, like with the suicide excuse me, the Hope Squad, yes, they're looking at changed behavior, yes, withdrawing, dressing differently. And then I want to think also probably eating

Unknown Speaker 10:27
has changed. Yes, appetite will either increase or decrease, and

Zandra Polard 10:31
we can't blame it on the school lunch. We just know that, yeah, we know it's nasty, right? Yeah, but you know maybe they are eating lesser eating more candy. And you know what? Dave, you noticed that sometimes the kids will bring in more candy, yes,

Unknown Speaker 10:47
yeah, yeah. Or little like, crackery snacks, or something like carby to snack on, like, mindlessly, like that, yeah.

Zandra Polard 10:57
So anyhow, those type of things are what we're looking for. Is there anything else that maybe I missing that, you know when I'm doing my check in, you know, whether that be friend, daughter, sister, brother, whomever, for sure, what am i What else am I looking for?

Unknown Speaker 11:14
I would say one of the biggest ones that we talk about and dissect a lot in our conversations during our Hope Squad meetings, is just talking and joking about death and suicide. I found in a lot of the risk assessments that I've done in my role as a school counselor that a lot of the times that's a warning sign that's gone on that person has talked about it or joked about it, and everyone chalks it up to being a joke, but sometimes people don't know how else to talk about it, and so they brush it off as a joke, because maybe they say, Oh, I might go kill myself. And as a feeler to see how everybody else is going to react. And then they're like, wait, what? And they're like, Haha, no, it was a joke, right? And so I that's a big one, especially in the school community, as kids are deflecting with humor all the time, but I guess adults do that also. So yeah,

Zandra Polard 12:06
we mask a lot through humor.

Unknown Speaker 12:08
Yes, you know,

Zandra Polard 12:09
I know that's a big one for me. I'm not gonna lie. You know, I laugh a lot, and it's like, if I'm laughing too much, you might want to check in on me. You know, I love humor. I love comedy. I love laughing, love making jokes, but when I'm smiling a little bit too much, I might be masking something sometimes, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 12:29
I had a conversation with some girls today about how sometimes people laugh because they're uncomfortable, not because what they think is going on is funny. So can't always take that at face value. It's important to read between the lines.

Zandra Polard 12:43
Yeah. And do we do that more as women? I think we kind of like Kiki and smile more than we really, for sure, probably, yeah, mean to mm hmm, yeah, that's okay. Well, I'll still greet you with smile in the morning. So although you are a school counselor, we can move on to some other subjects of interest that relate to mental health and wellness, right? All right. And so you were mentioning mindfulness, yes, okay, so tell me about mindfulness. How can I be more mindful?

Unknown Speaker 13:20
I consider mindfulness to be a practice where you're just really in tune with yourself internally and the environment around you externally, in the moment, you're not judging yourself or your experiences. So say you get distracted by focusing on your surroundings, not calling yourself a name, or like talking bad to yourself internally, just accepting it and moving on. I think that's a very important like ruminating. Yeah, I do that. I do too. It's terrible. It happens to the best of us. I like to think, yeah, so not ruminating, just like kind of letting go and letting go and letting yourself be present in the present moment. I think I'm gonna say checking in, like checking in with yourself, to be mindful,

Zandra Polard 14:09
forget everybody else. Check in with yourself. That's

Unknown Speaker 14:11
most important. At the end of the day, you don't take care of yourself. You can't check in with anybody else

Zandra Polard 14:16
You sure can, because you might get the wrong reading right, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 14:22
on yourself or others.

Zandra Polard 14:25
Okay, so mindfulness. And then what are some other things, like some other practices that you may teach others, or something that you do personally,

Unknown Speaker 14:37
something that I teach others is the importance of taking a moment to check in with yourself. I feel like I talk about this at school and outside of school. So it's per it's it works, check no matter what. Yeah, exactly, you're never too old or too young to pay attention to yourself and your mental health. Journaling. I. I personally have found a lot of I don't know what the word is. I want to say healing, but that sounds really dramatic. But just like an outlet in journaling, recently, I've gotten back into that. I talk to kids a lot about just self care, which is a blanket term people throw around a lot. Yes, they do. I describe self care to the students as something you do on purpose just because you like it. Okay, I like that. So it could be spending five minutes on or, I'm sure it's five hours on your video games, or painting your nails or taking a longer shower than usual. Like it doesn't have to be fancy, especially now if you're a middle schooler, but just doing something intentionally because you like it or because it makes you feel good. Yeah. So I think that's important as well, whether that's reading or walking or whatever

Zandra Polard 15:48
outdoor activities I like that, yes, yes, especially for our youth, yes. And then, of course, I'm always, always, always talking about journaling, because it is a cathartic process. It is therapeutic. You should be journaling every day. Yes, you should have several journals, one for this, one for that. You know, work on those writing skills. I'm

Unknown Speaker 16:11
glad I'm not the only person that has journals for different things like that. Oh yeah, yeah, they're

Zandra Polard 16:15
super important. And you know, I really took this last weekend. I really took the time to journal more than I normally do, and it was a reset for me. Mm, hmm, you know, because a lot of times when I journal, it's really quick, because it's kind of like I'm taking a few notes, right? Things I want to remember, things I'm feeling at the moment, goals, whichever one I'm writing in, it's just very brief, but I did, like I said, a reset, and I made myself sit there and write five pages, yeah, and as I'm journaling, you know, I'm free writing, right? Free writing is great because you're not overthinking of Did I spell this right? Is this feeling right? Did I word it correctly? You're just writing. But the first thing I said intentionally, I am going to journal today for 30 minutes.

Unknown Speaker 17:17
I love it,

Zandra Polard 17:19
because that's going to that made me get in touch with my feelings, because so often I know for me, and I know I'm not the only one, because I'm not alone. I will mask my feelings quite a bit, and I'm not in tune with how I really feel, because I'm so busy trying to mask it. Yes, hide it, deal with it later, sweep it under the rug. And I'm telling you, I'm not perfect. That is not a healthy thing to do,

Unknown Speaker 17:53
no that can bubble up really quick. And like

Zandra Polard 17:57
I've said, I've told this story before, and it's been many years. I was taking my kids to school, and this was after Mother's Day, and I had not received a card, a piece of candy, nothing, and we're on our way to school, and one of the kids did something very small, and I'm telling you, I went off. I was so upset, and I yelled at the kids, and then it came up, you didn't even get me anything for Mother's Day. Yeah, and in that moment, I felt so stupid, because I was like, oh, whoa. That's what's really going on. Mother's Day was last week, you know, so check in journal, get those feelings out, say how you really feel. And a lot of times it's not always the right time to say how you feel. Yes, correct, absolutely. That's how you can get into that cycle of pushing down. At least for me,

Unknown Speaker 19:03
I think as adults, that is very common, because when it's not the right time to address a feeling or feel the feeling, it's not always the time to have a breakdown or whatever you're feeling, it's easy to push it down. I think when also, when we look at students, when they don't have, like, if they're not journaling and putting it out there in that way, that's when they have, like, their explosions, like, instantly, like, it doesn't get pushed down, it just gets pushed out, right? And

Zandra Polard 19:31
they're learning that emotional inton, correct, yeah. And their brain is not even fully developed until they're about 25 years old, yeah? So, yeah. So what you're doing, that influence on the students? Wow. I mean, that's a wonderful, important thing in their in their development, yeah, so thank you for that, yes. Well, thank you

Unknown Speaker 19:54
for the work. Absolutely it. I love it. So that's all. It's my pleasure. Yeah. Yeah.

Zandra Polard 20:02
And, you know, I tried to pull, like, pull you away from the school counselor role and just talk to you, you know, one on one as adults with everyone listening in Las Vegas. But I have a hard time with that. It's hard because it's part of who you are, right. But I did want to ask you this, when I see students saying, oh, I need to talk to Miss Katie. I need to talk to Miss Katie right now, it's an emergency. And then I call you on the ram like, Miss Katie, something's going on. You need to come to the room such, this is it. And you get there, they gotta, they get out the room, and then what's happening is it really an emergency. I to them. It is. I

Unknown Speaker 20:49
really want to validate their experience. But I feel like from the adult perspective, it's really not, it's usually never life or limb or right, anything like that. I think most of the time it's, well, this person's been giving me dirty looks, so they're gonna fight me after school. So, like, I need to talk about it right now,

Zandra Polard 21:07
right? So that's fear, yes,

Unknown Speaker 21:09
okay, lots of that, lots of anxiety, lots of they self diagnosed anxiety. On their behalf, I will say, Okay. I mean, for sure, they're anxious. We're all anxious about different things. They I feel like that's, that's most of it. It's usually, like, peer related. When they say it's an emergency, it's because they're having problems with their friends, and they like, need to figure it

Zandra Polard 21:33
out. Yeah. And then that's when you come in with the toolbox, right? I try and then help them work on their social emotional stop. We

Unknown Speaker 21:45
have lots of restorative conversations in my office between friends or Okay,

Zandra Polard 21:51
let me hear some examples of that. What is restorative conversations among friends? How do you fix something for those who are young and listening, or parents who are listening, if the child or the student feels like they're afraid, they don't know how to deal with something and it's peer related, so and so my best friend doesn't like me today. She's upset because I told a secret. Okay, I don't know what to do. Then what? What do you say?

Unknown Speaker 22:27
I If someone comes to me like that, or if a student's coming to me like that, I hear them out. I let them tell me their whole side of the story. A lot of the times, now that I've built a rapport with like the school community, they know if they ask me to have those conversations in my office, that I will usually do that for them or pull the other student in. I also offer it. If they don't offer it first, I'll say, Do you want to sit down with so and so and have a conversation in here? Maybe it's a misunderstanding. Usually, that's what it is. Usually, maybe best friends not upset about the secret. Maybe they're upset because they got into a fight with their mom before they left for school, and it trickled down to their school day. So having them sit down, usually the person who comes to me with the problem is the one who I let them talk about their side of the story first, or just say, hey, this bothered me, and then I will let the other person say their whole side of the story, and then we kind of just talk about the misunderstandings. And a lot of a lot of my role in that is listening, I'll be honest, but just kind of leading their conversations like, well, what were you experiencing? Or like, did that make you feel? How did that make you feel during that and just them hearing and seeing the other person's side, I think, is really powerful. Even just seeing the look on their faces as they're having the conversation is important, you

Zandra Polard 23:51
know. And even as adults, you know, we don't get that mediation right. You know, a lot of people are struggling to even get therapy for themselves, let alone trying to get it for couples, right? So learning these things early, I believe, is great practice for them to understand yes, how to communicate

Unknown Speaker 24:19
Yes. Very powerful. And then we can resort, or refer back to those conversations as time goes by and reinstall those skills in the students. And that's really powerful, too, yeah, and

Zandra Polard 24:31
it's awesome, because, you know, you're working with youth as young as kindergarten, yeah. I mean, I don't think you have too many kindergarten running through the office, but we're catching them early, and that's what we need. Yeah, so I want to thank you again for coming on the show. We talked about some great things. We started as your role in the school as a counselor, who you are, what you do, how you do it. Also, we spoke about your group, your peer led group, Hope Squad, yes, yes, which is framework out of Utah, yes, yeah, awesome. So we have that at your school, and we are working to make our youth, socially, emotionally, well and connected. So do you have anything? Any last words,

Unknown Speaker 25:27
nothing crazy, any

Zandra Polard 25:28
shout outs,

Unknown Speaker 25:28
only to you.

Zandra Polard 25:32
I want to thank 91.5 for tuning in two. It's where I am. I'm here every Saturday at 7:30am you can find me on all your major podcast platforms, also my YouTube channel, and then there's also my website. It's where I am.com, thanks, and we'll see you next time you

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