As the morning bell echoes throughout the once-silent hallways of Building 1, students begin to make their way to class. Amidst the flow of backpacks and chatter, one student calls out with a smile and a quick wave, “Hi, Ms. Summer!”, a greeting directed toward a new addition to the school’s staff, co-located mental health counselor Summer Wadleigh.
“It’s so rewarding to feel like, ‘Oh my gosh, you know who I am!’” Ms. Summer said. “That has been the best part (of my job so far), just seeing the potential of the relationships I’ll be able to cultivate with the students.”
This year, the School District of Palm Beach County provided the school with a grant to hire a professional from an outside agency that specializes in mental health and provides individual counseling sessions by referral. Ms. Summer works for the Drug Abuse Treatment Association (DATA), specializing in their mental health program; they contacted her about the opening of the position for the school and said she knew “it was something that (she) wanted to pursue.”
Born and raised in West Palm Beach, she attended Santaluces Community High School before attending Florida Atlantic University where she attained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work. She said that her passion for the career path was inspired by “a calling to help other people.”
“I think everybody has an idea of a dream or something that they want to pursue,” Ms. Summer said. “It (helping people) was always something that I loved.”
Before coming to Dreyfoos, Ms. Summer explored several areas of social work, including child welfare through her experience with the Florida Department of Children and Families. She also provided medical social services while at Bethesda Hospital East.
“I think that there are a lot of fields that you could pursue in trying to be a mental health counselor,” Ms. Summer said. “I chose (social work because) you can do so many things.”
Despite the variety of settings she looked into, Ms. Summer said she felt something was “missing.”
She said she wanted to build more long-term relationships and witness the growth of those she was supporting; this realization guided her towards finding a job in an educational setting where she could focus on helping students.
“When it came down to the schools that were available, to me, Dreyfoos was almost a no-brainer,” Ms. Summer said. “I can tell that this is a very special place.”
Beyond her interest in fostering a deeper connection with students, Ms. Summer said she was also drawn to the school because of its focus on the arts, having pursued both visual arts and musical theatre herself.
“I ran my theatre department (at my high school), so I did a lot of the administrative and performance work,” Ms. Summer said. “I enjoyed giving students a place to channel their artistic abilities in a school where that wasn’t necessarily celebrated or valued very much.”
Ms. Summer approached her new role with an emphasis on establishing a safe space for students to “explore their feelings” and feel comfortable enough to be “vulnerable, open, and honest.”
“I think sometimes the foundation of any genuine, long-lasting change is just general acceptance,” Ms. Summer said. “We feel comfortable enough to change when we know we are accepted and valued as we are, and I think that is something that I really wanted to provide for the students here.”
Part of her approach, she said, focuses on bringing down the barriers between herself and students who might be apprehensive about opening up for the first time.
“A lot of people aren’t in the place of wanting to divulge deep information about their present or their past,” Ms. Summer said. “So I try to lead with (the idea) that we don’t have to immediately go there. This experience, when someone is deciding they want to work with me, is theirs. (It is about) whatever they are wanting to work on.”
Additionally, Ms. Summer said that her job can be challenging in schools where one-on-one time is brief and when the issues students are facing are beyond her immediate control.
“There’s so much that you wish you could do (for the students), but you know that you’re limited because so many of these problems are environmental,” Ms. Summer said. “They’re things that I can’t necessarily tangibly change in their life, so I think the hardest part is sometimes wishing that the students were in different circumstances and thinking that they deserve better than what they got.”
With a job that requires “a high level of empathy” and “emotional awareness,” Ms. Summer said she has to structure her sessions with intention — beginning with time to ease into the conversation; then, transitioning into discussing issues that they are facing; and finally, spending at least 10 minutes to check on the student to make sure that they feel comfortable.
“In a school setting, I don’t always think it’s fully appropriate to go super super deep into a traumatic experience because we’re sending them back to class immediately, and it’s kind of a lot,” Ms. Summer said. “So what I try to prioritize is, ‘Okay, what are some things that we can do right now that might alleviate any type of distress that’s coming up?’”
To help her students manage their emotions effectively, Ms. Summer incorporates a variety of approaches in her sessions, often drawing from mindfulness and psychoeducation techniques.
“(The strategies) are more so things that they can do in the moment,” Ms. Summer said. “If I’m talking about thought distortions, (we can try to) recognize what type of negative thoughts are showing up and talk about positive versus negative reinforcement. On the mindfulness side of things, it could be something like deep breathing or progressive muscle relaxation.”
Reflecting on her brief experience at the school so far, Ms. Summer said she has a lot of “gratitude for the school for everything that it has given me so far.”
“When I found out that I got the job, everyone was saying this was going to be a very unique and special experience, and I feel like so far, it has lived true to that,” Ms. Summer said. “I love knowing that students feel comfortable to share and be open with me, and I think that’s never something that I take for granted, so I really appreciate it.”
