Jeremy Johnson of Greenbush Provided KCTC Survey Results for Clay County to Clay Counts Coalition Members

By: Ryan Duey

Photo Courtesy of Clay Counts Coalition

Jeremy Johnson of Greenbush spoke to Clay Counts Coalition members during their monthly meeting on June 18th. Johnson is a Program Evaluator for Greenbush; a big part of his job is administering the Kansas Communities that Care Survey to students across the state.

Johnson spoke about the survey and its use. The survey is given to students in grades 6, 8, 10, and 12 at the participating school districts. He detailed some of the topics the survey covers.

“The survey covers a variety of subjects, ranging from things like behaviors, attitudes, and perceptions towards substances.”

“Attitudes and perceptions towards school, the community, and family. It covers things like bullying and feelings of depression, and thoughts of suicide.”

“Along with a variety of other subjects that kids deal with day in, day out in their lives, which can be difficult for schools to gain access to.”

The survey is anonymous, and student privacy is a very important factor. The survey for Clay County showed that substance usage is trending down over the years. He also spoke about Clay County students’ perceptions of bullying in the survey.

“One of the major areas for this is attitudes and perceptions around bullying. The numbers that you’re seeing in Clay County pretty closely mirror what we’ve seen around the state.”

“Roughly two-thirds of students said that they have seen someone being bullied at school both last year and this year.”

“Around a third of students, which went up a little bit this year, said that at least on one occasion within the last 12 months that they had experienced bullying of some kind.”

The survey also covered depression and suicide. Clay County students’ perceptions show higher numbers than they would like to see, showing almost a third of students experienced depression and thoughts of suicide.

Results of this survey help organizations like Greenbush, school districts, and the Clay Counts Coalition focus their efforts on improving necessary services to support the youth. Results for Clay County can be found at https://kctcdata.org/.

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