Girls are in a mental health crisis. A program in some Kansas City schools could help

Two schools in the Hickman Mills district, Smith Hale Middle School and Ruskin High School, are participating in a national program that provides counseling and clinical mentoring to girls who have experienced traumatic stress.

Shekinah Jackson walked into her first day at Chicago Vocational High School on the city’s South Side convinced she’d spend the next four years alone.

She’d been bullied for years about her weight, her skin complexion and the way she talked. In seventh grade, a classmate called her stupid in science after she asked a question. After that, she stopped speaking up in class.

By her freshman year in 2019, Jackson had come to believe the taunts. She tried to disappear at school — kept her head down, sat in the back, wore hoodies.

“I truly felt like I would never be good enough for anyone,” Jackson recalled in an interview last month.

While Jackson may have felt alone, she’s part of what experts are calling a crisis in the mental health of girls.