Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Hi, welcome back. It is afternoon, Friday, February 27, and we are going back to HH17 right now, which is mental health support and substance use disorder prevention in schools. And we have with us Nicole Miller from Vermont after school. Thank you for being with us and testifying on this bill.

[Nicole Miller]: Of course, thank you for having me.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Do you mean just go ahead?

[Nicole Miller]: Okay, I was gonna say, you want me to go ahead and just read my testimony and then go from there. Excellent. Thank you so much. Again, good afternoon. My name is Nicole Miller and I'm the executive director here at Vermont After School. We're a nonprofit organization that works to strengthen after school and summer programs, empower youth, and expand access so that any child or youth in Vermont who wants to attend a program can do so. Our organization works with all different types of these programs and the professionals that work within them from parks and recreation programs, childcare programs, schools, libraries, boys and girls clubs, YMCAs, teen centers, I could go on. I'm also a member of the After School and Summer Advisory Committee created through Act 78, our state after school and summer funding. And our organization serves as the Vermont entity for both the 50 state after school network and the National After School Association. I'm really excited about the opportunity to speak with you all today about H817. We strongly support this bill and believe there's an additional and supportive role for after school and summer programs to play in the youth mental health space to complement the school day, and we're an eager partner in this work. We know that Vermont's youth are concerned about their own mental health and well-being and that of their peers, and Vermont schools certainly have a strong role in supporting youth mental health through mental health literacy and peer support initiatives. Additionally, we encourage the committee to consider how to use out of school time space, which could be after school, summer, before school, weekends, evenings, and the programs that operate within that space to supplement what is built during the school day and year. Youths spend some of their waking hours certainly in school, about 20%, but there's a significant time that they spend in the third space, which is anytime they're outside of home or school. Decades of research show that after school and summer programs build protective factors by providing opportunities for young people to connect, learn new things, express themselves, access healthy food, and build relationships with caring and supportive adults. Through programs like these, we can help youth build resilience, increase belonging, and leverage additional time and space to support youth mental health literacy. This benefit of after school and summer programs is validated by voters, parents, and youth themselves across the country, with a majority of parents agreeing that after school programs support children's mental health and well-being overall. As I said, Vermont After School is a willing and able partner in this work. We offer a wide range of professional development workshops currently to after school professionals, and we've done some work with schools themselves during the school day. Some of those workshops related to mental health literacy include workshops such as Redefining Resilience, Youth Thrive, which is a really powerful two day training that focuses on adolescents, Youth Mental Health First Aid, that's a one day training again for adults working with adolescents. Things like de escalation, bank of trust, reaction to response, basics of social emotional learning, empowerment as a healing practice, and we offer a seven part eighteen hour series. It's formatted

[Justin Finar]: as

[Nicole Miller]: a micro credential called Foundations and Applications of Social Emotional Learning. Additionally, we're experienced in advising and training peer groups and have built and collaborate on several youth leadership agency and voice initiatives, which we think would be beneficial to this work as well. Those include things like teen mental health first aid, which is the complement to youth mental health first aid that's for peers, for young people that are in grades nine through 12 or ages 14 through 18. Crafting advocacy, how to share your story for impact as a young person, the Vermont Youth Project, and we also collaborate with the Vermont Child Health Improvement Program to support the Vermont RAISE, which is their youth advisory group to raise awareness for youth services and public health. Vermont After School also is the support organization for Vermont State Youth Council, which was created under Act 109 of 2022. It's a group of 28 youth, ages 11 to 18, from all walks of life and across the state. Of its five subcommittees, one is the Youth Mental Health Committee. Annually, each committee creates a set of recommendations, which are presented, which are then presented to and voted on by the whole council, which then full turn into the full set of recommendations. From there, the council is tasked with providing recommendations to Vermont's governor and the general assembly. They're also responsible for holding public hearings, sending out surveys, and collaborating and communicating with both individual peers and other youth advisory groups across the state. In this year's recommendations, the youth mental health committees shared ideas related to funding inpatient eating disorder facilities for youth ages 11 to 17. They wanted to create a statewide minimum number of excused mental health days for middle and high school age students and to pass legislation to fund multi year grants to teen centers. Overall, like I said, we 100% support this bill and see that there's a way to leverage additional spaces where youth and young people gather outside the school hours, and we're willing and able partner in this work and really happy to support the committee as you continue to work on this bill. And really thank you for the time to speak with you today about it.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Thank you so much, Nicole. Thank you for your support and for the work that you're doing in this space. Does anyone have any questions? Daisy? Nicole, can you talk a little bit about the way that Vermont Afterschool and especially the programs that would be potentially relevant to this bill?

[Daisy Berbeco (Ranking Member)]: How are those funded right now?

[Nicole Miller]: Right. So our organization has some state grants and contracts. We have one with the agency of education to support the the programs that are funded through the twenty first century community learning centers funding from US DOE. We also support the child development division to support licensed and regulated programs. There are a number of programs that fall out of that space that is funded by those two groups. We have had some funding from the Department of Health, but as federal shifts have shifted, some of that funding will not be going forward. And so we we shift to a fee for service model or try to cover that through other grants. And that would include entities like teen centers, some of those youth serving organizations, museums, places that are not funded by either the Agency of Education or the Child Development Division. But we certainly have ways to work around that and keep those costs low to try to make our offerings accessible to anyone in the field.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Leslie, go ahead. Yes, thank you, Nicole. Because I've been worried about when school's not in, so I really appreciate your testimony a lot. But this question may be, we don't have much counsel, but I'm trying to look at the bill and see if this bill allows them to apply for a grant. And I'm not seeing that.

[Leslie Goldman (Member)]: It seems like it only applies to schools and not necessarily organizations that are not schools. So I was just wondering about that. Go ahead. Go ahead, Nicole.

[Nicole Miller]: I was just going to say that's what I'm encouraging the committee to do is to to to expand the language in the bill right now as it's written to make sure that it at least says schools and after school and summer space or out of school time. I can work with you all on language. It's a little bit hard to define in a short space. But to allow that accessibility so that programs could apply for those funds certainly would be would make the bill stronger in our opinion.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that because I agree. Daisy, did you want to speak to that at all? No, this is, I mean, Nicole actually approached me about this bill. Then I invited her to testify because Leslie brought this point up, which I think is really an important one.

[Daisy Berbeco (Ranking Member)]: It's about year round support of our youth. Nicole, what can you tell us about I've had a few folks reach out about parental involvement with peer to peer programs specifically. Although this bill makes no intent of diagnosis of any mental health condition or other condition, and there's no clinical services involved. Can you talk a bit have you had that experience in any of your programs with folks who are concerned about parental notification of any issues?

[Nicole Miller]: We've not had that feedback yet. I will say I think one of the strengths strengths of after school and summer programs, maybe less so at the middle and high school level, but certainly at the elementary level, is that we see those parents as after school professionals every day at pickup. Right? Those families are coming to pick up their child at 05:00. And same thing during the summer. Oftentimes, it's a parent transportation or a caregiver transportation option. But in regard to have we had any concerns from schools or other entities about parent permission, have not received that feedback yet.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Thank you. I think we did receive a couple emails in beginning that topic, go ahead.

[Francis McFaun (Vice Chair)]: Thanks for coming in this afternoon. Great. I read a couple of times now what you just talked about. What other things do you do in the after school program other than what I've read here?

[Nicole Miller]: So I can speak a little bit about both what Vermont after school does and then what is typical in an after school space or program. And I'll start there. I was a after school director of a multi site program in the Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union for a decade and plus years. And so our programs really looked like as an afternoon, a check-in and snack that transition from the school day, a chance for young people to run around outside, hopefully if the weather cooperates. And then the latter half of the afternoon was really focused on extending learning or creating new opportunities, exploring new topics and interests for young people. So that could look like a chess club. Young people working on a musical production, it could be them writing creative stories, they could be learning needlework or knitting. Really is a lot of different things that can happen in that space. When you think about middle and high school, then we start to think about how do we support as a field young people to not only build their own confidence, but also to do things like career exploration and preparedness and start thinking about their future, but continuing to explore interests and passions so they can figure out what that might be for them in the future. So that's what a typical after school day looks like during the summer. That's like just more, right? A lot of programs, depending on their funding and what their capacity is as a as an entity, you know, many programs are running four or five, six, seven weeks over the summer, some run a little bit less than that. And then they're trying to be somewhere in the window of eight to four, nine to three, depending on their funding and capacity. But really, programs are again about young people having connections to high quality staff that understand and support young people that have some training. And that's where a lot of our work has come in that have some training around how do you support and talk about mental health literacy? How do you talk about emotions and feelings, and working through problems and resilience and all those pieces? And again, being able to explore those interests, but it's all interwoven by having, again, just more adult time and time with peers to be able to interact and engage while families might be working. And as you said, the concern to make sure that young people are being supported when school is not in session.

[Francis McFaun (Vice Chair)]: Okay, I'm going to just ask you a question. Do you ever have any fun? Always. Mean, I'm talking about mental health and having fun. I'm thinking back to my childhood when I was in high school and so on. We just didn't talk about this stuff. We also had fun.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Mhmm.

[Francis McFaun (Vice Chair)]: Dancing and all that. Things that kids do at that age. So you do that?

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Absolutely, right? I think we want

[Nicole Miller]: to make sure that we're not like, okay, we're going to sit down and talk about mental health literacy, right? We ensure that we're wrapping that into really fun, engaging opportunities and things like chess club and knitting club and, I don't know, outdoor games, like all sorts of different things. And we're just weaving those social emotional supports, mental health supports into that space. And again, it really comes down to making sure that we have adults that are trained and well supported to recognize the symptoms and signs so that if they need to, they can act, but that they're primarily focused on, like you said, the fun part.

[Francis McFaun (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: I just asked the question. I'm like, what do we call mini chess club fun? Mini chess club was gonna say it all did. Oh dear, what was I gonna ask? Knitting in chess club? Having fun. Sorry, my question just left my Well, any other questions for Nicole? Yeah, go ahead.

[Allen "Penny" Demar (Member)]: We have after school programs up in Franklin County. Are you all on the same page or districts have different ways of promoting after school programs?

[Nicole Miller]: So as an organization, Vermont After School will work with any entity that is supporting youth during the after school summer and third space place. We certainly as an organization want to make sure that every child or youth has access to a program and are working with our state partners and other community groups to ensure that more kids have access. We're working towards that universal school space. We're not there yet, but I'm feeling good about the progress that we are making.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Thank you. I remembered it. I've had questions from folks interested in the bill about whether adults working with youth are all mandated reporters and what the in your program model, what is the pathway for that to happen?

[Nicole Miller]: Absolutely. So when I was running my program in Orleans Southwest, we made sure that we were part of the school district. So we had to follow by those hiring policies. So anyone that we employed or volunteered with our program had to go through a fingerprinting and background check process as if they were any other staff member. Most of the other after school summer programs that operate through different entity types are following the same. It just depends on what specifically is being required. But certainly community groups, I mean, childcare programs have their own regulations around background checks and fingerprints. Really, for any insurance cover to cover any of your programming, they're asking for that as well, and certainly want to make sure that young people are safe and have adults that have passed some certain levels of safety.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Go ahead. It sounds like you're connected enough with local schools that there would be some notification there to teachers? Or can you help me understand what the pathway is like in a practical way that people notify families if they're concerned about youth safety, if they're at risk of harm to themselves, for example.

[Nicole Miller]: Yeah. Regardless, most after school programs, regardless if they are part of the school district or not, have agreements in place or at least working relationships to communicate whether kids are safe or whether there's a concern. That usually there's usually a formal process in which that's happening, but I am 100% certain that any after school or summer program, if they thought that a young person was possibly at risk of harming themselves or others, that they know who to reach out to and have communication channels in which to do that.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much, Nicole.

[Nicole Miller]: Thank you all so much for your work on this. I appreciate it.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Thank you. Care. Bye bye. Hi, Justin. You want to come on up?

[Justin Finar]: Where do I go?

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Right here. Great day. Awesome. I

[Justin Finar]: need to do a dance number too? Yes. Wow, would be something else.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Another negativity that is not fun for me.

[Justin Finar]: I'll put you through that, I don't want to. Again, my name is Justin Finar. I appreciate you taking time on your Friday. I know the weekend is closing in. I'm new to the testimony process, so I did want to just start with before I dive in and to be very clear, very supportive of this bill and what you're going for. So excited to talk about youth. But I was born and raised in Vermont, so I'm very much familiar and steeped in Vermont culture, education. I grew up, since I was 15, a tennis coach instructor at summer camp. So been working with kids for a very long time now. I'm in my 30s, it's been quite a while in the education world as well. So I currently work as a school counselor at the Center for Technology in Essex. And I also sit on the Vermont School Counselor Association as their public relations chair. The Vermont School Counselor Association, in summary, is really there to support the school counselors across the state. By doing so, we're supporting our youth and strengthening those support systems. So I really am hoping to paint a picture of my testimony of a background on what school counselors do, the importance of them, and how that supportive network can enhance the bridges you're trying to go for with eight seventeen. I also think just because there's a big group in here, I've worked in Franklin County, Franklin Northeast, Franklin West, and now Chittenden County. So I've been in several places across Vermont. I've seen a lot of different school systems. I've seen a lot of different needs in different environments and areas of Vermont. So I feel like I bring an eclectic perspective in that sense as well. And I've also, with that, I've supervised and co supervised a lot of different youth groups, whether it's GSAs, social justice unions, and also I'm going to speak to some mentorship programs I've been a part of as well. But again, thank you for the time today and some background school counselors. Again, this might be new information or repetition. I think it's just important to paint the picture that school counselors are really there to support students' academic, college, career, and social emotional development while also working to ensure that schools are places where students can learn, thrive, and succeed. School counselors work closely with families, educators, and administrators to support academic, career, and college planning, as well as working to remove barriers to learning and playing a vital role in fostering a positive, equitable, and restorative school appointment. School counselors often serve as the first trusted adult that students turn to when they're struggling. We provide ongoing support related to anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, peer conflict, family stress. The list can go on. There's a lot of challenges facing our youth today, and support systems are key. And we also identify and help identify early signs of any more significant concerns. We regularly respond to issues such as chronic absenteeism and escalating emotional distress, working with students and families to understand underlying factors and connect them with appropriate support systems. Through prevention, early intervention, and coordinated responses, school counselors play a crucial role in keeping students engaged, safe, and connected to their school community. So overall, I'm definitely supportive of ASE 17 and it's the intent that it's going for. It closely aligns with the work school counselors are already doing to strengthen the proactive and protective factors and increase mental health awareness within the schools. I'm particularly encouraged by the bill's focus on mental health literacy training for all school personnel, and it's clear language stating that this kind of participation is optional and doesn't require a specific curriculum or anything like that. Just the fact that ensuring educators and school personnel receive current and relevant mental health literacy training is a crucial step toward creating a more supportive environment. And from my experience professionally and personally, the more knowledge myself and other adults have, the more informed we are as adults about mental health, the more effective and proactive our approaches and supports can be in recognizing concerns early, responding with empathy, appropriate boundaries, and helping students access resources when needed. So, it's that full cycle of support. And this shared understanding helps to normalize conversations about mental health, substance use, reduce stigma, and strengthen the overall safety net for students. And I'm sure we can all agree, I can't speak for anyone here except myself, but finding connection and a sense of belonging are two critical protective factors for our youth when it comes to mental health and well-being. I feel like we all know that in some way or another. And this is one of the main reasons I'm in support of various student centered groups within schools. Allowing students space to connect with each other for support, especially when there's a structured program can foster leadership skills and give students a sense of empowerment while strengthening the school community in itself. And from my experience, although not exactly the same as the proposed peer to peer mental health programming, I do have experience and have witnessed firsthand from supervising middle high school mentorship programs how effective they can be for those students. For example, students get one to one attention with an older student. They build communication skills, which are going to help them further in life in general. They learn how to connect with someone. They learn perspective taking, empathy, compassion. They learn how to actively listen. They might take initiative to plan some of the activities. They get to give back to their school community. Kids love that. And I've also seen just a new found sense of purpose for students who get to participate in peer related activities. And as we all know, just to ourselves, space away from adults to interact one on one can be super beneficial and bolster more authentic sharing with one another just because, as we know, students often turn to one another first and feel comfortable with peers and can relate to them in different ways. So again, having those support programs and peer to peer systems can be beneficial for youth. And so when I was reading through 08/17, I was loving it and just I think looks like there's a lot of thought put into it, so I'm sure what I'm about to say is nothing new. I just strongly feel that successful implementation will depend on the thoughtful, strategic, and purposeful structure along with strong guardrails. I really appreciate that the bill places oversight and guidance with the Department of Mental Health and emphasizes developmentally appropriate approaches. Peer to peer programs raise important considerations that I'm sure everyone's thought of related to safety, liability, confidentiality, professional boundaries, like balancing clinical skills, mandated reporting, as we heard, and the emotional burden potentially placed on student mentors. So as the Bill States peer program should never position students as being responsible for managing serious mental health or substance use crises. And age seventeen's language stating that peer to peer programs must be supportive and non clinical and must not replace services provided by licensed or certified mental health professionals is critical and should definitely be preserved. And again, clear expectations, adult supervision, and strong referral pathways, as mentioned earlier too, to school counselors, for example, and other caring professionals are essential components of safe implementation. And if supervision is broadened to include designated school personnel in general who may not necessarily be licensed mental health professionals, it's imperative that they also are required to receive mental health literacy training, which is part of it as well, prior to overseeing a peer to peer group. In addition to this, I strongly recommend that any youth participating in the peer to peer program also should some kind of developmentally appropriate mental health literacy training. That way, if something does come up, they'll be at least better equipped with basic knowledge and skills related to mental health, safeguards, boundaries, confidentiality, as well as just a general awareness of what resources this school and community can offer if more intense emotions or topics do arise, because they might. We can't control what students say, for better or worse. And a clear, concise tiered framework for both the mental health literacy training and peer to peer programs will be essential to ensuring consistency, safety, effectiveness across school settings. I know I've said that several times, so I can't say it enough. And overall, I support what this bill seeks to accomplish and appreciate its careful and flexible approach like keeping participation optional, emphasizing nonclinical peer support, prioritizing mental health literacy for students and adults, ensuring protective factors. Eight seventeen offers schools, you know, an additional tool to strengthen student well-being, which I think is key. With appropriate guidance and safeguards in place, this legislation can meaningfully support Vermont's youth while respecting the diverse needs and capacities of school communities across the state. And again, like as mentioned in beginning, to bring it full circle in the school counseling realm, like on a final note, the school counselor association I'm a part of is also supporting age six eighteen, which would ensure that master's level school counselors have the capacity that is 80% of their time being dedicated to provide students with direct services, which isn't always the case right now in Vermont and other states as well. So school counselors in Vermont are being accessed for other services or duties, although essential to running a school, not necessarily in the realm of what they're trying to do. For example, lunch duties, substitute teaching, proctoring tests, etcetera, which as we can probably gather, pulls them away from supporting students' academic achievements, college career pathways, and that social, emotional, and mental health needs that are mentioned in eight seventeen. So age six eighteen would only increase the effectiveness of eight seventeen by allowing more capacity for school counselors to provide support for the mental health literacy and peer to peer programming that are essential to our youth empowerment and support. So, transparency, human to human, I'm just hoping you would consider merging the two bills to further enhance the support systems of our state's youth. And I just, again, really appreciate the time and consideration of taking these steps in general to support our families and students across the state. There's some challenging times right now.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: What was that build number? 18.

[Brian Cina (Member)]: 18. I looked it up. Okay.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Another one, that's it. You keep looking at them. Yeah. But it's in education.

[Justin Finar]: So I definitely wanted to jump in with this one too, because it's very related.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Glad you mentioned that. Thank you. And thank you for serving Essex Westford,

[Francis McFaun (Vice Chair)]: because that's a

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: district that I represent.

[Justin Finar]: I grew up there as well. Oh, you did? Yeah. Went to Essex High School, played golf, tennis, soccer, so I'm active in the Is it your 30? 33. Almost 33. You

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: would have gone to school with some of my children, but we can talk about that. Probably don't need to do that. Go ahead, Allen.

[Allen "Penny" Demar (Member)]: Good. Just so you, as a counselor, you've been working at the elementary level or high school level?

[Justin Finar]: So my professional experience for the past nine years has been middle high school level. I've done an internship at the elementary.

[Allen "Penny" Demar (Member)]: And how much cooperation do you get with teachers identifying mental health issues?

[Justin Finar]: Again, I think almost ten years is still technically early in my educational career, but I feel very thankful for the staff I've worked with, that they've been very honest, on board, and on the same page when it comes to supporting mental health. Everyone has a different approach. Again, I know we're not here to necessarily talk about teachers, but man, oh man, they're asked to do so much these days. So balancing out school counselors helps to balance out everyone and creating more youth avenues helps to also balance that. So long story short,

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: it does have something to do with mental health in schools, they're there. Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. Brian, did you have a question?

[Brian Cina (Member)]: Yeah. Earlier, you that you mentioned protection and a sense of belonging. Is it protection that you said? Connection. Connection, okay. Connection and a sense of belonging.

[Justin Finar]: Those two critical proactive factors.

[Brian Cina (Member)]: That are related to the work that you were describing and what this bill would support. Are you familiar with the interpersonal theory of suicide? Not directly to that theory, no, but I'm pretty familiar with suicide prevention work. In the interpersonal theory of suicide, it talks about how there's a Venn diagram and that the intersection of the three is the place where you have the greatest risk of lethal action. And the three factors, and I'm sharing this because it's leading to a question, but are belonging, so you said a sense of belonging, being a burden, and what's called acquired capability. And I looked up what the antidote is to this, like what's considered the antidote. So I'm curious how, if you could just elaborate a little about how this bill might support the antidote, and I'm gonna list the three components. So if you knew what the theory was, I would've just asked you to speak on how it's related.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: You should have heard of rest

[Brian Cina (Member)]: of us. So it's good. You can reduce risk of suicide by strengthening belonging, by reducing a person's sense of burden, and by giving them safety and opportunities for restoration. So can you say a little bit about how age eight seventeen might promote those three things? Because you said connection and belonging, which are those things?

[Justin Finar]: My experience, for example, I can give an anecdotal and then a general broad When I worked in Franklin West at Fairfax, the middle school, they have a community garden in the back. So I actually am a huge proponent for restorative or holistic practices to give back to the community. And I found that working with young boys especially, we got to go out into the community garden. I advocated for that type of support. And although not a mentorship program peer to peer, it did kind of blend itself into one and an informal group where they felt like they could give back to the school community and do something they were already good at because they may have lived on a farm or they know those skills. So in that sense, I feel like age 17 is really playing into that holistic or assertive approach where it's giving schools more permission and building on their capacity to allow students to take the wheel for a minute. And mean, yes, I'm still 32, but I'm still lost sometimes when I'm in schools of how they communicate with each other and the serious issues that they're facing of basically living two lives with phones. They have a digital world and an in person world, and they know what's going on way more than I do. So if there's a way to bolster them supporting each other as the first level and then knowing the support systems to go to adults if needed. Again, I'd rather someone be trained in CPR and not have to use it than to not be trained and to use it. So I like the A17. It's like putting the tools back in the hands of students and staff of like, here are the tools. You may need these, you may not, but at least you have them.

[Brian Cina (Member)]: Thank you. I think you articulated how this bill supports this committee's long term work to prevent suicide by explaining that. So I want to just, on the record, get that. Yes, thank you.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Thank you for asking the question, Brian. Any other questions for Chester? Thanks, I have a quick question. Yeah, of course. I like that community garden thing, I'm because having a really hard time visualizing how this what it looks like. Can you kind of give me how you envision this peer to peer? Sure.

[Justin Finar]: And this is really my perspective. I'm not So going to write it might be completely different. And from my experience, when I worked at Ennisburg Falls Middle High School, we did a mentorship program. We called it mentees and mentors, or M and M's for short. We always had some celebrations. But we hand selected high school students who we felt could be or already leaders or saw potential to be leaders because sometimes having kids well, leaving in kids and having them step up was great. And then we would do our version of training them, which is like eight seventeen is talking about as well. Hopefully that students would get training and then they would have basic communication skills, connection skills, know what to do if a topic came up that was over their head. And then we found common time between the middle school and high school. And we found a common space or a few different spaces. And we tried it was me and another supervisor. So I imagine at least one adult, if not two or more. And finding space in school can be tough, but hopefully a space where they can have thirty minutes or forty minutes of uninterrupted time to talk with each other and do a game or activity. Sometimes something in front of you we found was really helpful. So I imagine it wouldn't be a free for all. I imagine there's a lot of purposeful thought for pairings of, like, how you might run that in the school of, you know, this student feels like a good match with this student instead of just kinda, like, putting them all out there. And then supporting the students or the mentors along the way or however you want to model it and making sure they have language that's needed or, again, a list of supports if they need it. That's why I brought up AppKit for them being trained as well, at least the basic level of knowledge. And like Nicole was saying, too, even the after school model does it really well. They bring fun into it all the time. So it doesn't have to just look like a robotic sense of do this, then this. It's like, we're going to play kickball today. Tomorrow, we're going to do arts and crafts. Or let's bake something in the school kitchen. Or let's just go for a nature walk. That's how I envision it. It's like what your community has to offer. So maybe it's in the garden. Ennisburg always had great trails by the river. Chittenden County, there's a lot of bike paths. There's just a lot you can do when you have that trained adult as well. So they're there in the vicinity, but they're not hovering, hovering. So I think the goal is to make sure you have that space, which has seemed successful too. Sorry, I got on my own tangent. Don't know if

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: they can answer you. Yeah. Thank you.

[Justin Finar]: Yeah. Thank you.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: I'm you're the least fun person in the world because you keep mentioning all these things. Not fun. Not fun. One day you'll have to tell us what

[Justin Finar]: it is. Fun.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Yeah. It is. Not fun.

[Brian Cina (Member)]: Oh, eating food.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Fun. Fun. I can do it. Okay, Daisy, did you have another question? I just had a comment. Justin, I am so grateful for your testimony. You hit it out of the park as a first time witness. Most of all, I think you understand this bill and the intent of it more than anybody who's sat not here yet. And your input was so incredibly meaningful and helpful. You made a couple of recommendations I've noted that I'll take for our Legis Council and have them look at. And your recommendations will make this bill safer for kids, better for teachers and the adults around them. And your input is really valuable, and I'm glad that you're doing the work you're doing for our kiddos.

[Justin Finar]: Thank you. That's very kind. Yeah, I appreciate it. It's clear that hard work went into this. Just anything that's out there to support kids, I'm in. So it's much appreciated what you're doing amongst all the other things I'm sure I have no idea

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: about. Thank you. Thank you. You have been helping Nathan up there in Venusware.

[Francis McFaun (Vice Chair)]: Demar? Yeah. How

[Brian Cina (Member)]: are doing, Nathan?

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: I'm tell you. He's your exact same age, so I'm guaranteeing you probably know somebody from everyone.

[Justin Finar]: Working at the tech center is great because it pools from at least nine areas in Chittenden County plus outside of that, so it's been great to see different students. But yeah, I graduated EHS 2011, if that helps.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Yeah, can't remember when I graduated. Tell. Barely remember when I graduated. Did they ever coach adult symptoms? I used

[Justin Finar]: to a lot. I used to do from age four to through adult, and then I've cut back a lot. I am coaching at EHS, so I'm getting back into the game. This week, Quest.

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: Thank you. I think we're gonna take just like a five minute break. Oh, oh, touching your name, mommy. On to five, 78.

[Francis McFaun (Vice Chair)]: Forgot about that.

[Brian Cina (Member)]: I was thinking we

[Alyssa Black (Chair)]: were