A recent Doctoral Graduate from Georgia Southern used her dissertation to launch an education partnership focused on children’s mental health in the Caribbean. Her project links universities, schools, and communities to break the stigma around mental health and give families new ways to talk about emotions, trauma, and hope.
Doctoral Graduate and Georgia Southern education partnership for children’s mental health
Ambah Kioko, Ed.D., a school psychologist and recent Doctoral Graduate from Georgia Southern, built her research around a simple question: how do you help Caribbean families speak openly about children’s mental health when silence and shame feel normal?
Her answer grew into an Education Partnership with the College of Education at Georgia Southern, linking academic research with real classrooms, parents, and community groups across several Caribbean islands. The partnership supports teacher training, parent workshops, and child-friendly resources that use local stories and folklore.
How Georgia Southern College of Education shaped the project
Faculty in the College of Education encouraged Kioko to question who holds knowledge in a community. This critical lens pushed her beyond imported Western models of mental health and toward solutions rooted in Caribbean history and culture.
The hybrid format of the Doctor of Education in Curriculum Studies allowed her to keep working full-time as a school psychologist while conducting fieldwork. Weekend sessions and online courses gave her room to design interventions, gather data, and refine a model focused on mental health awareness among parents and educators.
Using storytelling to break the stigma around children’s mental health in the Caribbean
Many Caribbean parents grew up in households where emotional struggles stayed hidden. Terms linked to mental health carried fear or shame. Kioko turned to traditional storytelling to gently break the stigma and open new conversations.
Across the region, Anansi stories, folk heroes, and community legends have long carried coded messages about injustice, resilience, and survival. Her research shows these stories still influence how children see courage, fear, and support today.
Story-based method for children’s mental health awareness
Kioko’s method uses short, culturally familiar tales as a starting point for guided discussion. Instead of asking children to label diagnoses, educators explore characters who feel scared, angry, or isolated and ask simple questions.
Children then link these stories to their own lives and learn language for emotions that felt hard to name. Parents who attend sessions hear the same stories, which supports shared understanding at home and school.
- Step 1: Select a local folk tale with emotional themes such as fear, loss, or hope.
- Step 2: Read or act out the story in class or a parent-child group.
- Step 3: Ask children what the character might feel and what support they need.
- Step 4: Link the story to real-life school or family situations in simple terms.
- Step 5: Share basic mental health awareness messages for caregivers.
Through this process, children’s mental health stops being a taboo subject and becomes part of normal, everyday conversations about stories and choices.
Education partnership structure between Georgia Southern and Caribbean communities
The Education Partnership connects Georgia Southern researchers with Caribbean schools, ministries, and local NGOs. Each partner focuses on a specific layer of children’s mental health support.
University staff help refine data collection and program evaluation. Caribbean educators adapt story scripts, classroom activities, and parent guides so they fit local language, beliefs, and school routines.
Key pillars of the Georgia Southern College of Education partnership
The partnership currently rests on three main pillars that reinforce one another through community outreach and shared learning.
First, professional development for teachers and school psychologists shows how to integrate stories, role-play, and reflection into regular lessons instead of isolated workshops. Second, parent engagement sessions keep family voices at the center so solutions respect household realities.
Third, ongoing research collects qualitative and quantitative data to track changes in mental health awareness, help-seeking behavior, and classroom climate. This structure makes the work scalable to new islands and school systems.
Breaking the stigma through community outreach and parent engagement
To break the stigma around mental health, you need public spaces where parents feel safe to ask questions and share fears. Kioko’s outreach model uses community centers, churches, and school events as entry points.
Sessions focus on practical steps parents take at home, such as how to respond when a child withdraws, struggles to sleep, or shows anger after stress. Facilitators use role-play and discussion, not lectures, to keep parents active and invested.
Linking children’s mental health to wider life challenges
The partnership also connects children’s mental health to other pressures many families know, such as parental separation, migration, or incarceration. For example, studies on the impact of parental incarceration on children help frame discussions about trauma, grief, and stigma.
Facilitators show parents how these stressors influence learning, attention, and behavior. When caregivers see the link between emotional security and school success, they become more open to mental health awareness and outside support.
Children’s mental health, school environments, and screen use
Teachers in the partnership often raise two related issues: heavy screen use and post-pandemic stress. Both shape how students focus, sleep, and interact in class, which affects children’s mental health across the Caribbean.
Program materials include guidance on classroom routines, boundaries for devices, and breaks outdoors. These steps support attention and reduce anxiety without blaming children for habits shaped by wider digital trends.
Balancing classroom screen time with mental health
Educators draw on international research about classroom screen time and student wellbeing. They adapt suggestions to island contexts where access to devices and internet differs by community.
Workshops show how to pair digital learning with offline activities such as drawing story scenes, acting out characters, or taking nature walks linked to the story themes. This balance lowers overstimulation and supports deeper processing of feelings raised by the stories.
Nature, climate, and Caribbean children’s mental health
Caribbean children grow up close to the sea, forests, and farms. At the same time, they face storms, coastal erosion, and climate anxiety. These realities shape children’s mental health and must be part of any serious support strategy.
The partnership integrates eco-themed stories where characters face environmental change and find collective solutions. This helps children express fears about the future while building a sense of agency.
Nature-positive approaches and global education debates
Evidence from projects focused on nature-positive approaches for children’s mental health shows that regular outdoor time improves mood and resilience. Caribbean schools in the partnership experiment with story circles under trees, beach cleanups, and garden projects linked to emotional themes.
These efforts connect with wider debates seen at events such as COP30, where children’s education and climate sit high on the agenda. The message to students is clear: your feelings about climate are valid, and your actions matter.
Working conditions for educators and sustainable mental health support
Support for children’s mental health depends on stable, well-trained staff. Shortages of teachers and counselors, which affect countries worldwide, limit what schools offer beyond basic instruction.
The partnership looks at international examples such as UK school staff shortages to anticipate similar risks in Caribbean systems. Planning includes training paraprofessionals and community volunteers to assist with storytelling sessions and outreach.
Hybrid training for working professionals
Following Kioko’s experience as a working Doctoral Graduate, the partnership promotes hybrid training for teachers and psychologists. Weekend workshops, online modules, and local mentoring reduce pressure on staff already stretched by large classes.
This model protects educator wellbeing while building capacity for mental health awareness programs. In turn, children receive steady support from adults who feel prepared and valued.
Post-pandemic school reopenings and mental health awareness in the Caribbean
Caribbean students still feel the aftershocks of school closures, learning gaps, and family stress. Research on school reopenings and mental health shows higher levels of anxiety and social difficulties when routines change abruptly.
The Georgia Southern partnership uses its story-based approach to process these experiences. Children talk about characters who missed school, lost loved ones, or moved homes, then relate the story back to their own return to classrooms.
Building resilience through shared narratives
When students hear that others felt lonely or scared too, shame decreases. Teachers frame these emotions as normal reactions to abnormal events, which is central to healthier views of mental health.
Shared narratives help classes rebuild trust and routines, from morning check-ins to peer support circles. Over time, these habits create school cultures where children’s mental health is seen as part of everyday learning, not a separate or hidden issue.