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How does one sum up the past nine months for an agency committed to continuing to provide affordable and accessible mental health services?
Three words: Pivot, adapt, and persevere.
During its 47th year serving residents of Mountain View and surrounding communities, CHAC made the best of a difficult situation, pivoting to a telehealth therapy platform when shelter in place began in March. Of special concern to our staff was the potential impact on students when their world was abruptly turned upside down. CHAC’s Early Intervention Counseling and Prevention Programs serve 1 in every 6 students in 35 schools across four school districts, including Mountain View Whisman and Mountain View-Los Altos High.
While schools have been on remote learning, CHAC’s therapists have helped students navigate feelings of loss, confusion and fear by providing them with ongoing telehealth services by phone, video, or a combination of the two. They are doing a wonderful job, and it is my pleasure to share one of their stories to demonstrate how CHAC’s clinicians continue to use creative and individualized therapeutic techniques to make a positive impact in many lives.
In September, one of our school clinicians was introduced by video to 7-year-old Eli, a bright girl who enjoys exploring the outdoors, solving riddles and coding. Like many children, Eli is undergoing a new school experience: distance learning. Rather than venture off to school, Eli now remains at home, sitting in front of a computer for hours each day.
School is not the same. Playing outside is not the same. Being at home is not the same. Everything has changed. Eli’s teacher and mother both noted that in times of sudden change, Eli’s anxiety and aggression levels increase. Eli finds change to be frustrating, and when Eli gets frustrated, she tends to yell, hit, and/or throw things around.
Eli’s mother observed her behavior decline once she began distance learning. Her teacher noticed that Eli appeared bored in their Zoom classroom, sometimes unmuting herself to talk and play music or even exit the class and not return. While these kinds of behaviors are fairly common for kids of Eli’s age when faced with online learning platforms, her parents, who essentially have become her home-based school teachers, decided to resume school-based CHAC services to provide her with a space to learn about and share experiences and feelings.
To everyone’s surprise, Eli was more than willing to engage with her new therapist. Their first session was filled with the two of them sharing interests, riddles and many laughs. Over time they focused on building awareness of her moods through colors, together constructing a “mood thermometer” where Eli could use different colors to verbally or nonverbally share her feelings — all part of CHAC’s prevention and intervention approach to working with challenging thoughts and emotions.
Eli began to independently develop her use of the thermometer to share multiple colors to describe how she felt about a situation, noticing how the reported colors would change over the course of a day. She was even able to independently incorporate learned coping skills from her past therapist; for example, when reportedly feeling “yellow,” Eli would either engage herself in deep breathing or excuse herself for some alone time in her room.
Eli’s teacher, school psychologist and school principal have stepped up, sharing their resources to support both Eli and each other. Eli’s therapy is ongoing, as her frustration still leads her to experience occasional outbursts. But her therapist, teachers and parents report that she has shown much growth in the past few months. They all point to Eli’s increased awareness of feelings, efforts to continue to learn and understand about emotions, and insight into how behaviors affect her and others as indicators of positive growth under the guidance of her CHAC therapist and wrap-around care team.
CHAC is one of seven nonprofit organizations serving Mountain View residents that benefit from the Voice’s annual Holiday Fund. Donations to the fund are divided equally among the nonprofits and are administered by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation at no cost, so 100% of contributions go to the recipients.
CHAC (Community Health Awareness Council) is located at 590 W. El Camino Real in Mountain View. For information call 650-965-2020 or visit chacmv.org.
Lyn Balistreri is CHAC’s development director.
