I completed my social work practicum at the St. Louis Crisis Nursery, a wonderful agency that provides a variety of services to families experiencing a crisis. The children in the families we serve experience high rates of trauma, poverty, racism, and other risk factors for mental and behavioral health challenges. However, their families often do not have the resources or knowledge to appropriately meet these children's needs on their own, so they seek support from the St. Louis Crisis Nursery. To better support these children and families, I developed and completed five action steps to improve the St. Louis Crisis Nursery's response to the mental and behavioral health needs of the children it serves. These action steps were 1) facilitating behavioral interventions with children in the Respite program using a DBT-C informed Behavior Management Toolkit; 2) leading a presentation on emotional expression and regulation for a parent education group; 3) implementing an easy, age-appropriate screening for adverse childhood experiences in children who enter the Respite program, 4) implementing the DBT-C informed Behavioral Tool Kit at several SLCN locations and provide training for staff and leadership agency-wide; and 5) advocating for mental health policy issues, such as mental health insurance parity and establishment of a #988 crisis and suicide hotline in Missouri.

Rachel Crowe (rachel.crowe@slu.edu) and Alana Ramey (alana@crisisnurserykids.org) were hugely influential in the development of this project. As Hope's practicum seminar teacher, Rachel Crowe guided the development of Hope's capstone goal and action steps, and she holistically supported Hope as a person, a student, and a practicum student. As Hope's field instructor, Alana Ramey was integral in the implementation of these action steps, helped Hope develop new ideas and work through challenges, and was incredibly supportive of Hope's growth throughout the practicum experience.