The big picture
Mayfield, a former pastor and current assistant professor at Colorado Christian University, launched the digital version of the Stop Light Alert System in early January to help charter and Christian schools across the country create a streamlined process for checking students' mental and emotional needs.
"Coming in to this [project], we noticed that most charter schools, Christian schools and even public schools either have a bunch of different systems monitoring student's mental health or no systems," he said.
He said he created Stop Light Alert to help schools monitor student's mental health in a streamlined process.
The Stop Light Alert system works in steps.
- A teacher sends a text to the software program indicating green, yellow or red status to indicate urgency.
- The teacher is prompted to fill out a form in real time.
- The form goes to a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-compliant database.
- If a text is yellow or red, someone on the Student Support Committee will be alerted immediately.
- A member of the committee will meet with the student before the end of the day.
- If needed, a long-term wellness plan is created to keep track of the students mental health after the initial assessment.
Mayfield said the different colors indicate the severity or urgency of a situation, and the form asks the teacher who sent the alert a series of questions, such as:
- What is the behavior or concern?
- Is this the norm for this student?
- How long has this been going on?
- Is there harm to self, others or abuse?
- Has a parent been notified?
Amanda French, the lower school counselor for The Woodlands Christian Academy, said the committee is composed of counselors, nurses and therapists.
Zooming in
French said mental health became a new focus at The Woodlands Christian Academy in 2023. The school created a small mental health group with educators, nurses and volunteers.
The program expanded after the group learned about Mayfield's software over the summer.
After that, French said she became the first counselor on campus after serving in different roles in the academy for eight years.
Jennifer Jadlot, the current director of the health clinic on campus, is a graduate student studying school counseling and clinical mental health counseling. Both she and French serve on the Student Support Committee.
"We want our parents to know that we love their children and we are seeing them," French said. "It's their whole heart living outside of their body, and that's all that they want. Now that they know we have a counselor on-site and we have this mental health program—it's huge."
Looking forward
Mayfield said the Stop Light Alert system can be utilized by any school in the nation. His goal is to get 30 schools onboarded every year in Texas or nationwide.
"Faith-based schools are finally starting to see the importance of mental health programs," he said. "The goal is to just get the program in front of as many schools as possible and see what happens."
The Woodlands Christian Academy has been using the printed version of the Stop Light Alert system on its campus for the past year before switching to the new digital version that launched in January.
"This system gives our teachers a method to help a student in the way that they want to," Jadlot said. "I think often our teachers feel ill-equipped ... so it gives us as a school the ability to meet each students needs and ensure that they are heard and seen."
French said TWCA's goal is to add at least two more counselors to the mental health program in the next year or two.
