Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/818598
t m c » p u l s e | m ay 2 0 1 7 16 16 Bridging a Gap A new program aims to improve the mental health and well being of at-risk tweens and teens T welve-year-old Kenya loves shopping, Beyoncé, dancing and all things purple. Like other sixth graders, she's deep in the emotional turmoil that is middle school—frenemies, crushes, hormonal changes, academic pressures. The list goes on. "I've been friends with this girl ever since last semester, and now we're, like, enemies," Kenya said. "She will sit with the other kids and make fun of me and not stop. … In some classes, she will act like she wants to talk to me and stuff and then in the other classes, she will just be mean like the other kids." Kenya also faces broader challenges. She attends Francis Scott Key Middle School, located in the Kashmere Gardens section of northeast Houston, a low-income area with limited access to health care, transportation and youth facilities. For several years, Kashmere High School has failed to meet the state's academic standards. Ten years ago, a study by Johns Hopkins University and the Associated Press called the school a "dropout factory," because at least 40 per- cent of the freshman class didn't make it to graduation. Adeeb Barqawi realized that something had to change in the Kashmere community when he taught chemistry at Kashmere High through Teach for America. "Many of these kids come from single-parent homes," Barqawi said. "One parent might be in jail. We are dealing with high rates of teen pregnancies and some of the highest dropout rates in the country." In an effort to address these issues, Barqawi started ProUnitas, a nonprofit that helps provide essential services to students in the Kashmere community and promote success among students. This past spring, ProUnitas collaborated with The Menninger Clinic, a psychiatric hospital that treats adults and adolescents with complex mental illness, to launch BridgeUp at Menninger at Key Middle School. "BridgeUp is focused on improving the mental health and well being of the community's youth and, in particular, youth who are disadvantaged—coming from poverty, ethnic minorities that have already started out behind the eight ball," said C. Edward Coffey, M.D., Menninger President and CEO. In all, $1 million in BridgeUp at Menninger grants were awarded to seven recipients in Greater Houston to integrate social and emotional learning into the core curriculum for at-risk students. BridgeUp is part of a larger national program founded in New York City. Barqawi and ProUnitas decided not to imple- ment the program at Kashmere High School, but to launch it instead at Key Middle School, which has a population of approximately 700 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. "By having BridgeUp at the middle school, we are reaching students before their behavioral issues become a major problem," said Angelica Edwards, ProUnitas linkage manager at Key Middle School and Kenya and her classmates respond to a question from Angelica Edwards, LMSW, who teaches BridgeUp classes at Francis Scott Key Middle School. B y B r i t n i N . R i l e y