Increasing mental health support for students most affected by the Marshall Fire

Children’s Hospital Colorado declared a pediatric mental health state of emergency in May of 2021, citing skyrocketing demand for mental health services among Colorado’s youth. In addition to the well-documented impact of the pandemic on mental health, our community also experienced a mass shooting and Colorado’s most destructive wildfire in 2021. In the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD), referrals of students to Mental Health Advocates have risen by 86% this school year compared to the same period during the 2020-21 school year. 

What are mental health advocates?

Within BVSD, Mental Health Advocates provide prevention and intervention services for students, supporting their social-emotional and behavioral development, student achievement, and crisis intervention.

Mental Health Advocates can also provide both group and individual counseling support and work directly with students, parents, and staff members. For more acute counseling needs, they help families access external resources for mental health. As a direct result of the Marshall Fire and the mental health impacts this is having on our community, we are working to immediately increase the mental health services available to BVSD students.

Raising funds to expand BVSD’s team of mental health advocates

Impact on Education is actively seeking funding to facilitate hiring four additional Mental Health Advocates to be deployed in BVSD’s most impacted schools. The additional staff would be assigned to the 7 schools most directly impacted by the Marshall Fire, serving 6,061 students, 687 of whom lost their homes or remain displaced. With more than one in every ten students losing their homes and nearly all students at these schools impacted by the evacuation orders and trauma of temporary displacement, these are the schools with our most pressing mental health needs right now.

“We are seeing a significant increase when it comes to the social-emotional support our students need at this critical moment, those impacted by the fire are working to process everything that happened. It was a deeply traumatic experience and it will take some time for these students to cope with the tremendous amount of loss and PTSD that everyone impacted by the fires are struggling through.”

Tammy Lawrence, Student Support Services Director

The additional support will ensure all of the impacted schools have the intensive layer of mental health support needed, and expand BVSDs capacity to respond to mental health referrals. The intensity of mental health concerns and the time required to provide support and intervention varies dramatically from case to case, but BVSD’s leadership is confident that adding these clinicians to the School District team is the most critical immediate step.

Nearly half of the necessary funding was secured from a donation from the Community Foundation’s Boulder County Wildfire Fund and we are actively working with other funding partners to secure the balance of the required funding.

The importance of mental health support right now

Increasing mental health support to the students most affected by the Marshall Fire will benefit approximately 6,061 students in 7 of the 32 schools home to students impacted by the fire. BVSD’s Mental Health Advocates collaborate and make appropriate referrals to partners including Mental Health Partners and Jewish Family Services.

Mental Health Advocates supplement what BVSD’s school counselors can provide since their focus is exclusively on mental and behavioral health. They work directly with the administration in each school building to determine the needs, and then collaborate on what curriculum to use to meet individual students’ needs. This includes working in collaboration with school counselors to ensure there is a direct impact for each student, and extends into providing services to the teachers and staff who always play a key role in supporting the social-emotional health of the students.

District seeking additional mental health grants

Beyond their funding request to Impact on Education, BVSD is requesting two emergency grants, one state and one federal, to provide additional mental health staffing and support to schools most impacted by the Marshall Fire.

“We are tremendously grateful for the support of Impact on Education and our entire community, as we work to provide support for those impacted. This is not a situation that will be resolved in days or weeks. We must be ready to help our fellow neighbors for the many months and years it will take to not only rebuild, to once again feel safe and to return to normalcy.”

Dr. Rob Anderson, BVSD Superintendent

Read more about BVSD’s plans to hire school counselors, nurses, and outreach positions in this story from the Daily Camera.

YOU CAN HELP …

Impact on Education is a nonprofit organization, and we depend on our community to help us put our mission into action. We are still actively raising funds to support the mental health needs of Boulder Valley students and staff. You can help by making a gift to support this work. On the donation form, where it says “My donation is for” please select “Critical Needs Fund – Marshall Fire.”

GIVE TODAY

How BVSD Community Liaisons support families in need

In difficult times, sometimes it’s hard to know where to turn. For many families in the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD), their school’s community liaison is their first – and sometimes only – trusted resource.

What is a community liaison?

Most schools in BVSD have a community liaison who works to direct services to high needs students and families and acts as liaison for families with school and community agencies. Liaisons are key to providing opportunities for students to develop a desire and ability to complete their education. They also advocate for practices and policies that may help decrease student dropout rates, increase graduation rates, and increase student attendance and achievement.

We often refer to the team of community liaisons at BVSD as our front line workers. During remote learning periods they helped provide emergency resources for families, including delivering food and other essential supplies to students’ homes, assessing who needed home internet, and offering up emergency child care for students who didn’t have other options. They are also playing a crucial role in our Marshall Fire response and helping to recruit students for our Career Readiness Academy.

3 ways we partnered with community liaisons this month

Many BVSD students and families are in need of essential supplies to support their ability to learn and stay in school. Using $40,000 of the funds raised through our Critical Needs Fund, last week we distributed:

These resources were distributed to community liaisons at their February meeting. Thank you to our partners at Premier Members Credit Union who joined the meeting and provided breakfast AND a coffee gift card to each liaison as a thank you for their incredible dedication to students and families.

“Impact on Education is a reliable bridge to community resources. Our community liaisons know they can depend on Impact’s steadfast commitment to students and families and the generosity of their donors to meet the needs of those in our community facing the toughest challenges.”

Ari Gerzon-Kessler, Coordinator of Family Partnerships

In total, this month we placed over $50,000 of assistance into the hands of those who work most closely with BVSD students and families in financial need, continuing our long-standing partnership. 

We know how hard BVSD’s team of community liaisons works to provide resources to those who need them most and are so grateful for their commitment to our students.

Helpful resources for families

The team at BVSD has a fantastic resource page for families, with information about key BVSD supports, ways to get involved and stay informed, who to contact if you need help, and a list of community resources and services:
https://www.bvsd.org/parents-students/family-supports

Volunteer Spotlight: Cindy Arbuthnot

Cindy Arbuthnot has worked for Broomfield-based Premier Members Credit Union (PMCU) for over 32 years. She specializes in reporting and analytics that support their portfolio department and is often the first to raise her hand to support the strong partnership PMCU has with Impact on Education.

What motivates Cindy to volunteer

Helping other people and making a difference in her community brings Cindy joy. While we appreciate the time and energy she spends helping the students and staff of the Boulder Valley School District, she enjoys making them feel appreciated. PMCU regularly offers opportunities for their staff to volunteer with Impact on Education, most recently helping assemble and distribute over 900 comfort kits to students across the district who remain displaced by the Marshall Fire.

Cindy was lined up to help with the Comfort Kits, but a last-minute emergency kept her from participating. She has, however, volunteered her time helping with a number of wonderful projects, including assembling welcome back bags for every BVSD staff and educator in fall of 2020 and welcome baskets in the fall of 2021.

Welcoming staff and educators back to school

The fall of 2020 and the fall of 2021 looked very different, and Cindy supported two very important volunteer projects for back to school.

In 2020, the school year began with all students learning remotely from their homes. In order to boost the spirits of staff and educators we partnered with PMCU to put together over 5,200 welcome bags that included water bottles, pens, notepads, and some local chocolate from Lily’s Sweets! It was a huge undertaking and the bags were so appreciated throughout the district.

In 2021, the school year began with in-person learning. Everyone could feel the excitement, the anticipation, and the pure joy of being back at school. We partnered with PMCU again to deliver over 120 welcome baskets to each school and BVSD building break room, filled with snacks, stickers, dry erase markers, sticky notes and other fun items to help start the year off on a high note.

Meaningful volunteer opportunities

While Cindy’s analytical mind was key for putting together efficient assembly lines, she also enjoyed the creative element required to make the bags and baskets look special.

“I want teachers to know they’re appreciated. I could never do what they do, and it’s important for them to know other people are paying attention.” 

Cindy Arbuthnot, IOE Volunteer

Cindy says she has a lot of fun volunteering on these projects. She knows that they’re doing meaningful work and gets to broaden her network by connecting with people from other departments and branches of PMCU.

Find volunteer opportunities with us

Is your organization interested in partnering with Impact on Education to support the students and staff of Boulder Valley School District?

Your support of Impact on Education makes a difference and we’ll work closely with you to ensure the community knows you are committed to public education. Together with our corporate partners, we create opportunities to strengthen brands while building support for public education and meeting the needs of local students and teachers.

Learn more about IOE Corporate Partnerships >>

Five ways we are supporting Marshall Fire recovery for the BVSD community

Four weeks ago, the Marshall Fire devastated our community, and left many of our family, our friends, and our colleagues unexpectedly displaced. Our schools and neighborhoods are collectively grieving and working to help each other rebuild, both physically and emotionally.

We remain grateful to every individual, business and community partner who’s reached out to us looking for ways to help. Thanks to this generous outpouring of support, we’ve raised over $700,000 through our Critical Needs Fund to support BVSD students and staff. 

We’ve already distributed backpacks full of school supplies to students who lost their homes and here are five additional ways we’re supporting recovery for the BVSD community right now.

1. Providing 900 “Comfort Kits” to displaced students and staff

Thanks to a generous donation of backpacks from JanSport, we’ve been working with local volunteers to build “comfort kits” by filling these backpacks with gift cards, blankets, art supplies, journals, letters of support from students and community members and other age-appropriate items. 

This week, schools will receive enough “comfort kits” for every student that is still displaced by the Marshall Fire and included on the McKinney-Vento roster. Soon after, kits will also be delivered to each of BVSD’s over 70 displaced staff members.

We’d like to say thank you to JanSport, Boulder Book Store, Grandrabbit’s Toy Shoppe, and every individual and business that has made a donation of their time or resources.  

2. Supporting the mental health of students and staff

Families rebuilding their lives after the devastation of the Marshall Fire face a mountain of challenges, and that stress and uncertainty weighs heavily on them. In close coordination with BVSD Student Support Services, we are working to secure funding to increase the number of Mental Health Advocates available and programming that will support the emotional well-being of students and staff. The Marshall Fire’s impact on our community’s well-being is significant, and we feel strongly that we must immediately increase the mental health services available to BVSD students.

3. Transportation stipends

With students from Louisville and Superior now displaced and living all across the Front Range, getting students to and from school each day presents a new and immediate challenge for families. With the shortage of bus drivers, providing additional routes and changing current routes cannot reach all displaced families. BVSD is promoting the school pool program, in the hope that families will be able to help others who need help getting kids to school, but carpools and buses are not enough. 

The McKinney-Vento Act provides an optional reimbursement for personal transportation costs, but it’s modest and barely covers the cost of gas. Impact on Education is supplementing the transportation reimbursement so all families who now have to drive their students further can be fully reimbursed for those costs. We know it’s not the same as living in the neighborhood, but we hope it makes things a little easier for families who are struggling. 

4. Replacing instruments and athletic equipment

Working closely with our partners at BVSD, we are identifying students that are missing academic materials, including textbooks, library books, musical instruments, Chromebooks and athletic equipment. When these items can’t be replaced with a donation or insurance, Impact on Education is paying for replacements so each student can fully engage in school. From golf clubs and violins to textbooks and hockey pads, we’re making sure students can return to their learning, their music, athletic endeavors and other extracurriculars without delay. 

5. Crocs donating shoes to every BVSD student and staff member

You may have already seen that Crocs committed to providing over 30,000 pairs of Crocs to students and staff in the Boulder Valley School District. We’ve all been through a lot, and this generous donation is extra special because it will provide a little comfort to the entire BVSD community of students, educators, administrators and staff. We’re helping facilitate the distribution of Crocs in the coming months, starting with our schools impacted most by the wildfire.


What lies ahead

We’re only able to do all of this impactful work with the support of volunteers and community partners, and our work is not done. Your help allows our small staff team to continue focusing on tackling the ongoing needs of all students. 

We’re working on providing summer learning opportunities for 160 rising kindergarten students, facilitating a Career Readiness Academy for low-income BVSD high school students, and addressing economic and learning barriers that curtail student success

The importance of our mission does not change during a crisis. The students in our community rely on us to ensure they have the resources needed to fully engage in their learning. Our work to empower students and educators drives us in good times and in challenging times, too.

How our Critical Needs Fund will support the BVSD community

It’s hard to believe the Marshall Fire began two weeks ago. We remain heartbroken to see the devastation in our backyard and more so as we realize how it will affect the community for years to come.

Impact on Education raises $500,000 for BVSD students and staff

We’re pleased to report that we not only met last week’s $50,000 matching grant challenge from Don and Karen Brown, but we’ve now raised over $500,000 through our Critical Needs Fund since the Marshall Fire began on December 30th. The outpouring of support from the community is uplifting to see, and we’re incredibly grateful to the 800 donors that helped us reach this milestone.

The funds we’re raising will directly support the immediate needs, long-term recovery, and mental health of BVSD students and staff.

What we’ve done so far

Our immediate focus was ensuring that the students who lost their homes would be able to return to school with everything they needed to resume learning. We brought together community volunteers and supporters to organize and distribute nearly 600 backpacks filled with school supplies and headphones for these impacted students across the district.

We’ve also utilized our dedicated volunteers to:

Thank you to the volunteers who have supported us with these efforts and to the hundreds more who raised their hand to help!

More support for staff and students is coming

While the needs of our community become more clear, our next step is to provide cash assistance to staff and gift cards to students most in need of support. In addition, we have volunteers corralling in-kind donations from local partners and will be creating comfort kits that will be distributed to impacted students and staff later this month.

We’re simultaneously working with BVSD and other partners to build a long-term mental health response that will support everyone in the district. This fire impacted the entire community, and coupled with the stress of the pandemic, we know providing free access to mental health resources will be critically important. 

BVSD also continues their work to support families and employees directly impacted by the Marshall Fire and offering trauma support.

Responding to the Marshall Fire

The magnitude of the Marshall Fire tragedy is unimaginable. But so is our community’s willingness to help. Thanks to this generous community, so far we’ve raised over $200,000 from over 400 supporters through our Critical Needs Fund. These dollars are already being deployed to fund the distribution of backpacks, headphones and school supplies to nearly 600 students at 22 affected schools in BVSD.

School supplies delivered for every impacted student

In close coordination with BVSD, our immediate focus is enabling students to return to school and to learning as quickly as possible. Yesterday, we pulled together 25 volunteers who helped us organize and deliver 600 backpacks filled with school supplies to 22 BVSD schools with students displaced by the Marshall Fire. Every BVSD student who lost their home was welcomed back to school today with a brand new backpack and the supplies they need to start the semester off.

The needs of our community are continuing to unfold and we’re here to help.

BVSD staff are rapidly gathering information about the academic materials that need to be replaced including textbooks, workbooks, computers, calculators, musical instruments, athletic equipment, library books, and more. Impact on Education will deploy our Critical Needs Fund dollars to pay for these supplies as well so that school can return to normal for students. 

$50,000 matching grant from longtime Louisville residents

To ensure that we have the financial resources to meet the ever-evolving needs of our schools and students, we are proud to announce a $50,000 matching grant from Don and Karen Brown, longtime Louisville residents and champions of public education. Every dollar raised by Friday, January 7th, up to $50,000, will be doubled thanks to the generosity of the Brown Family.

MAKE A DONATION

When the COVID-19 pandemic required schools to close, we jumped into action, raising more than $600,000 to meet the critical needs of students, families, and schools in the Boulder Valley School District.

One year later, we’re sharing an update on how our Critical Needs Fund and Student Academic Support Fund addressed vital needs for our students including food security, the digital divide, and supplemental learning. We are proud of the work we’ve accomplished and hope you are too.

How funds were invested

$265,000 invested in supplemental instruction

$165,000 to ensure families have food on the table

$100,000 to provide a safe and stable place for students to learn

$60,000 to enable access to remote learning

$12,000 to equip elementary students with supplies

$10,000 to keep kids reading at home

On the horizon

We will continue meeting the critical needs of BVSD students this spring and summer and are committed to ensuring students facing opportunity gaps receive the support they need to stay engaged in learning.

A recent study by McKinsey & Company estimates that “students on average could lose five to nine months of learning by the end of June 2021. Students of color could be six to 12 months behind, compared with four to eight months for white students.” This translates to an average loss of “three months of learning in mathematics and one-and-a-half months of learning in reading.”

We are planning ways to provide supplemental instruction next school year and are committed to making sure that the disruptions to student learning in 2020-21 do not lead to long-term or permanent deficits for the students in our community, especially those who are traditionally underserved.

By Karen Antonacci

Carly Hare’s Pawnee name <i kita u hoo <i ]a hiks — which translates to “kind leader of men” — turned out to be prophetic as the Impact on Education board vice chair has made a career of navigating the intersections of philanthropy, identity and equity.

A family that values education

Carly is a citizen of the Pawnee nation and grew up in rural tribal Oklahoma. Her family placed immense value on education.

“Both of my grandfathers — one was full-blood Pawnee and one was full-blood Yankton — they were college graduates in the 1940s,” she said. “My grandma that married my Pawnee grandfather … she went back to school in the 1960s because my grandfather said it was the best insurance policy she could have, to have an education and be independent and support herself and the family if she needed to.”

Carly excelled in school, spending summers in STEM or basketball camp. By the time she graduated high school, she had a lengthy resume.

“I was class president then vice president and then started a tutoring program as part of my (National Beta Club) service and then was captain my senior year of the basketball and softball team but also the friendliest and most unique in my superlatives,” Carly said before laughing. “Granted, we had the biggest class in 10 years at 50 kids.”

Even though she graduated with a 4.0 GPA, Carly said she felt her education experience didn’t adequately prepare her for her post-secondary experience. 

“I didn’t have the most rigorous high school education where it felt like I was challenged and tapped in ways that unearthed my interest in different areas. It was more the external science and math camps and the application-based projects I got involved in that were more of interest to me,” she said.

Building a career

Carly started at Colorado Mesa State College (now Mesa State University) on a full-ride scholarship as a biology major. By the end of her freshman year, she had lost her scholarship.

“It took me three semesters to figure out how to study and I made a major shift,” she said. “I switched my major to mass communication and a focus on public relations and it took five years before I graduated. But it was a good shift, because I knew I could be a science communicator and I could understand math and science in a way that a lot of people don’t have easy access to.”

Carly had to work three jobs the rest of her college career to continue her education.

When she graduated, she started a long track record of working for national native nonprofit organizations including the Council of Energy Resource Tribes, the Native American Rights Fund and serving as executive director of Native Americans in Philanthropy.

She became aware of Impact on Education when she worked as a program director at the Community Foundation Boulder County. Additionally, Carly has served on the boards of numerous nonprofits and advised and educated philanthropic professionals about improving diversity and inclusion.

Focusing on the underserved

“Predominantly the last 11 years professionally I’ve been working on this movement that is asking how do we change philanthropic practices and relationships to center on traditionally underinvested-in communities,” she explained.

Carly uses that expertise as the vice chair of the IOE board by leading on diversity, equity and inclusion work. That dovetails nicely with IOE’s work to fill the gaps for BVSD students to make sure they have all the resources they need to succeed.

“I hope to be able to bring those resources, skills and frameworks into IOE around our internal culture and climate change we’re going through with priority and commitment work, and then externally we are thinking about the evolution of how we are supporting students and the district at large,” she said. “It is a really great way to bring what has been strategy and theory into actual practice.”

In her career, Carly said she has learned that successful nonprofits go to the communities they serve for solutions to problems.

“We can’t find a solution for other people and expect it to stick. No matter how well-intentioned and resourced we are, it won’t be as successful as when we’re in actual communication and partnership and discussion and active community building with the impacted and affected communities.”

Helping students find their path

In terms of big-picture goals for Impact on Education, Carly draws from her own public school and collegiate experiences. She feels it’s important that students have access to education that encourages critical analysis as well as offers opportunities for them to explore their passions.

“Education should allow students to be fully present, so the arts and culture and athletics are high priorities for me. I want to bring forward that really robust access to fully engaged students to see where they can thrive and the tools they need to succeed in the future,” she said.

Setting students up to succeed in the future means supporting them as they transition to a postsecondary educational journey, whether it’s a trade school, courses in leadership and small business management or a traditional college experience, Carly added.

“Those pieces I don’t think were offered as readily or accessible 20 years ago,” she mused. “Now, we can think about how we help people find their passion and pathways and outline what those could actually look like so you don’t feel like you’re stumbling through it all.”

Chris Snedeker was looking for a way to serve the community when an email from Impact on Education dropped into his inbox. For Chris, serving his community is about engaging with people on a personal level and paying it forward. BVSD and Impact on Education have been ever-present entities in his life as his kids wound their way through the school system. The many challenges and great people—teachers, administrators and of course, their friends—on that path always impressed him, so it was easy to say yes to a request for help distributing food to BVSD student families.

Behind the scenes

After an online training, Chris was given a confidential list of eight BVSD student families who needed food deliveries. He showed up at Columbine Elementary School early the next Monday unsure of what to expect. The day prior he made a practice run to ensure all of the student’s homes were accessible. 

At Columbine, Chris was greeted with cheerful smiles—yes, you can see twinkling eyes above those masks—helpful guidance and kind gestures. The BVSD personnel were busy pulling cartons of food off trucks, stuffing individual bags of food and organizing gallons of milk. Despite how busy they were, they took time to walk him through the procedure: delivering one and one-half gallons of milk and a full grocery bag to each student, each week. 

“I encountered people who were energetic, conscientious and fun to work with.” 

On the road making deliveries

Setting off to make the deliveries, Chris didn’t know what to expect at the other end. BVSD advised volunteers to make contact and be friendly, but maintain distance. What he found with each and every delivery was someone who came to the door, smiled at him and said thanks with an evident depth of gratitude. This was true of each of the five households (eight kids). After a couple of weeks, the deliveries were doubled to 16 kids, but the friendly welcome and gracious appreciation continued. 

Chris continues to deliver food each Monday to make sure BVSD students have the nourishment they need to tackle their studies. He says he is struck by the consideration, gratitude and friendliness he encounters at every step of this journey. 

Paying it forward

“I’m having fun and thankful for the opportunity to engage with members of our community that I rarely see,” Chris says. By giving in this way, Chris is seeing his own horizons expand. Helping the community he raised his family in is further strengthening his ties to Boulder, Impact on Education and BVSD.

Interested in volunteering with us? Learn more or sign-up on our volunteer page.

As I think we all know by now, last week’s rally and subsequent storming of the U.S. Capitol were not isolated incidents nor are they a temporary problem that can quickly be resolved. 

It was interesting (and difficult) timing that we held a Board and staff conversation about race, equity and inclusion the very next night. The session was led by a talented facilitator who helped us understand and reconcile our own biases and develop tools to overcome them as individuals and as an organization. We left the meeting feeling empowered and hopeful that we were having the hard discussions that can really make a difference, and that our entire team is deeply committed to equity.

A focus on educational equity

As we reflected on the work we did that night, we realized that our work to embrace diversity, to champion equity, to become more inclusive and to ensure justice is finally poised to move beyond talk and into action.

For a long time in education, and especially in Boulder Valley, we’ve talked about our persistent achievement gap. Students of color fare worse in almost every conceivable way, scoring lower on standardized tests, enrolling in fewer advanced classes and offered fewer post-secondary options. Our students reflect similar realities along economic lines. 

Our affluent and middle income students perform well while their low income peers lag significantly behind. And despite all of the talk about the quantifiable facts that are laid bare when you look at student academic performance, very little action is taken to address this achievement gap. 

Putting our beliefs into actions

Last week, over 50 of BVSD’s talented professionals serving on the post-pandemic recovery task force met to discuss the robust recovery work that will address these persistent inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic. 

Educational equity was a priority when our organization was founded nearly 40 years ago. Since March, however, we’ve been particularly concerned about how disruptions to learning would impact students, especially those who are traditionally underserved. 

Meeting the critical needs of BVSD students

The pandemic shifted our funding priorities from addressing achievement and opportunity gaps to addressing newly identified critical needs of our students. In 2020, we raised $2.4 million to support students in the Boulder Valley School District. This funding allowed us to provide:

Creating lasting change

Now, we are finally at a place where we can create targeted interventions to address both the academic and social-emotional well-being of students. I’m encouraged by the forthcoming BVSD plan and how it might create lasting change for students in our community.

While overcoming disparities and addressing inequities among local students will take time, we’re working to ensure that meaningful action is taken now to ensure changes that endure far beyond the pandemic. We are hopeful that this work may one day be seen as a turning point, and that a positive legacy of these trying times will be the way we finally moved beyond talking about equity to finally addressing it. 

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Impact on Education
721 Front Street, Suite A
Louisville, CO 80027

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