Kent ISD — Chelsea Kittridge-Farrell, a mental health wellness consultant at Kent ISD, has been appointed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to serve through 2029 on a statewide initiative aimed at reducing youth suicides and improving mental health support for school-age children and their families.
Michigan’s School Safety and Mental Health Commission includes leaders in education, law enforcement, community mental health and social work. Its charge includes developing coordinated strategies for student well-being, reviewing school safety policies and technologies, and advising on standards that impact youth mental health and safety in schools.
An updated law requires all public and nonpublic schools to have a multidisciplinary behavioral threat assessment and management team in place by October 2026. The teams are tasked with identifying and assessing potential threats, developing intervention plans, establishing centralized reporting systems, and documenting all related actions.
Kittridge-Farrell, who has trained in and trained others in the Michigan State Police threat assessment model and was previously a school social worker at Rockford Public Schools and other districts, said she is honored to bring her real-world experience to the commission.
“When I look at what the work is really trying to accomplish, it’s ‘How do we more proactively identify kids who, usually through a combination of the situations that they’re living through as well as the skills that they don’t have yet, puts them at high risk for violence at school?’”
The commission’s work will focus on both prevention and response — aiming to identify early warning signs, enhance community collaboration and provide schools with actionable tools to better support students’ mental health and safety.
Kittridge-Farrell emphasized the importance of grounding statewide conversations in the daily realities of school communities and ensuring that the needs of students are central to the commission’s recommendations.
“I’m appreciative of and hopeful with the commission, as it is a group of people from diverse training, education, licensure, and the work they do, come together and hopefully come up with a very multi-layered way that we can support the kids and the families who need this.”
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