Inverness woman is taking action to help teens

As a mother of four and grandmother of 10, Karen Fitzgerald worries about the increasing number of school shootings and teenage suicides.

But rather than wringing her hands, the Inverness woman is actively working to prevent future tragedies.

Fitzgerald and her husband, Robert, are the organizers behind a new golf outing to raise money that will put more counselors at local schools through a program called the Alexian Brothers School Mental Health program. The golf outing takes place June 25 at Inverness Golf Club.

During the dinner portion of the event, attendees will hear from Philip Andrew, a former FBI agent who was shot by a school shooter in 1988. In February, Cardinal Blase Cupich named Andrew to the newly created role of director of violence prevention for the Archdiocese of Chicago.

“We want to do anything we can do to prevent (school shootings and suicides) at our local schools,” Fitzgerald says. “Mental health appears to be at the root of many of these. There's just a huge need for somewhere for these kids to go and talk to someone.”

The nearly 10-year-old school mental health program provides on-site individual and group counseling at 20 middle and high schools in the Northwest suburbs, as well as mental health education, early identification and crisis intervention.

Fitzgerald notes that National Institute of Mental Health statistics indicate that 20 percent of teens between the ages of 13 and 18 live with a mental health condition, as do 13 percent of students between ages 8 and 15.

Having on-site counselors at schools is making a difference, Fitzgerald said, but the program relies completely on philanthropy.

It costs $16,500 a year to place a counselor in a school, one day a week; $33,000 for two days a week; and $49,500 for three days.

Fitzgerald initially hoped to raise enough money at the golf outing to provide two more area schools with a counselor for two days a week. But due to the generous response from supporters, she's cautiously optimistic the outing might raise enough for three schools.

While the Alexian Brothers Foundation ultimately raises money for the program, it depends on donors such as the Fitzgeralds, said Melanie Furman, vice president of advancement for the foundation.

“Our foundation raises money to support the 20 local schools we are currently serving,” Furlan said. “However, we have additional schools requesting our services and our current schools are asking for additional support. 

“Ideally, we want to expand this program,” Furlan added, “but to do this, we need to build a base of annual philanthropic support. This golf outing goes a long way to making this possible.”

Fitzgerald, who also serves as a board member of the St. Alexius Women's and Children's Hospital in Hoffman Estates, said these school-based mental health services are seeing success.

She said that during the 2015-2016 school year at Winston Junior High School in Palatine, a counselor worked with seventh-grade students who had a combined 41 psychiatric hospitalizations that year.

That same counselor followed up after those students transitioned to eighth grade and found that they had no psychiatric hospitalizations. During that same time, the school saw a 30 percent decline in absenteeism and a 20 percent decrease in failed classes.

“Every family has someone dealing with mental health issues,” Fitzgerald says. “My primary objective is to make sure that students in our schools have access to these services.”