By Robert Williams

Editor

The Frazee-Vergas High School Student Services department is made up of a group of four alumni who are providing modern counseling to kids from simple interactions to therapy and creating a safe space and creative place in helping students make the most of their time in school.

“School counseling has evolved so much in the 18 years I’ve been doing it; it’s not even the same thing,” Fett said. “We are meeting the needs that maybe weren’t met before. It’s much more acceptable for students to seek out guidance and help and support.”

Counselor Ta Fett, Class of 1981, is the most experienced of this “dream team,” and while the other three Hailey Brower, Class of 2014, Marty Thorp, Class of 2013 and the Class of 2021’s Paige Schaefer, were students of Fett’s, they have not come together as contemporaries. 

Schaefer completed her undergraduate studies at the University of North Dakota and is currently in grad school at MSUM in Moorhead. As part of her studies, she is interning this year in Frazee.

Brower is also a UND alum, where she got a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work and she earned her Master’s degree in Grand Forks also. She is part of the two-counselor team that works in Frazee via Stellher Human Services.

Thorp earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Counseling at MSUM. Thorp interned with Fett two years ago and worked last year at Lake Park-Audubon. He works for Freshwater Education District out of Wadena and splits time between Frazee-Vergas and the Menahga school districts.

“We all have very different roles here,” said Fett.

Thorp provides a variety of services in both districts.

“A little bit of everything,” he said. “I get to do a little bit of counseling, scheduling, truancy and academic counseling.”

Thorp also focuses on seventh and eighth grade students.

Schaefer’s internship is covered by MSUM’s Infuse Mental Health grant, part of a project that addresses a critical shortage of school-based mental health service providers in our region.

“I get money to work here and provide mental health services,” she said.

As one of two school-based Interventionists in the district employed by Stellher Human Services, Inc. Stellher’s services are provided by grant money that allows the district to have two mental health providers in the schools all year for only $15,000.

Schaefer works primarily in individual therapy and group skills, focusing on mental health, social and emotional learning and cognitive therapy. Through Stellher, students are referred to Brower.

Underinsured or uninsured students can get assistance at no charge thanks to the state grant.

“The goal of it is to provide mental health services to kids and families who would not necessarily get services because of funding and insurance reasons,” said Brower.

Brower’s therapeutic work is a benefit to the rest of the group. Two years ago, before Stellher arrived on campus, Fett and Thorp, while interning, said the counselor’s offices were a revolving door of mental health needs.”

“We were just barely keeping our heads above water,” said Fett. “Once we got Hailey here, it has made a world of difference. Kids are getting their needs met regularly where I felt we were just putting out fires quite a bit.”

The group has managed to streamline the counseling process for the betterment of students and their own jobs.

“We all know our roles,” said Fett.

Thorp also noted that Brower’s presence allows students to not miss school. Prior to the Stellher contracts, students would have to leave campus and travel to Perham, Detroit Lakes or Fargo for services.

“There is no outpatient treatment provided in the city of Frazee,” Brower said. “They check into their class period; they come meet with me and then they go to the next class.”

Brower is providing students with ideas and skills, along with stability and regularity so they can get through their week,” said Fett.

That benefits students over the long-term. Fett cited the differences from counseling decades ago, where students had little mental health support and often self-medicated, leading to truancy, dropping out or worse.

“Being able to provide this, we are really helping kids stay in school,” Fett said.

There have also been big challenges recently. Fett, Brower and Thorp were on campus two years ago when the district lost a student to suicide.

“It can be very difficult sometimes,” Thorp said.

“Having gone through those things in the past, just having people in the building that know these faces—it was a world of difference to have those faces here with these kids that they were familiar with,” said Fett.

Creating that familiarity comes from the small things, such as a simple hello in the hallway.

“The building of relationships—you start doing that and kids know they’re supported, parents know you’re supporting their student—it makes such a difference,” said Thorp.

“You think hall duty isn’t important when you’re out there greeting kids, building those relationships are so important,” said Fett. “That is the strength that these young people have.”

Being alums is also a big factor in how the group can work together for success. It’s extra special to be helping kids who are walking in the shoes all three recent grads were in during the past decade.

“I’ve been thinking about that a lot, lately,” said Thorp. “The relationships that I built with staff here, as a student, when I think about my job here—that is what I want to do for the kids now—build that sort of relationship.”

Brower cited the efforts of staff that helped her graduate in Frazee and move on to postsecondary pursuits.

“To be in the position now, what an honor it is that I get to help kids get through their darkest times to keep going forward and readjusting the goal they thought they had for themselves or having the ability to take risks and create goals for themselves that maybe they didn’t think were possible— what an honor it is to be a safe person and an adult in their life and community to help them do that,” Brower said. “I’m just a stepping stone in their life, but that’s my whole job—the whole reason I am doing what I am doing.”

The group also acknowledges their work is not alone on an island in the middle of the school. There is a collaborative effort with teachers that has always existed in Frazee.

“We work together,” Fett said.

Some of the outreach stretches into the classroom like presentations on conflict resolutions and coping mechanisms.

Many of those issues are less seen in the halls and more a product of modern times in regards to the heavy use of social media among students, which presents its own logistical challenges.

“That’s probably had the worst impact on student mental health,” said Fett. “It’s reading negative things, having access to porn. I find it so interesting that we are living in an era where they are so worried about banning books. Get that $2,000 phone out of your kid’s hand. They’re not reading books right now. They’re online.”

Fett cited research like Janathan Haidt’s 2024 book “The Anxious Generation,” How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Haidt argues that the rise of smartphones and overprotective parenting have led to a “rewiring” of childhood and a rise in mental illness.

For the department’s most recent addition, coming back to Frazee was part of her plan, whether or not she knew it could ever come to fruition. Schaefer was excited to get a chance to return what she received as a student in Frazee.

“That was probably one of the best days of my entire college career,” said Schaefer. “Learning that I got to come back here to the place where my heart never left. I went to UND and I went to MSUM, and I couldn’t stop thinking, ‘What would Frazee need?’ I tailored all my projects to it hoping that maybe I would get to come back here. It’s been an absolute blessing to come back and provide the things that were given to me.”

Having graduated high school three years ago with her Associates degree, gives Schaefer a unique ability to bond with students she recognizes and was in school with herself.

“The kids know who I am and that’s a blessing and a curse,” she laughed. “So far, it’s a blessing. It’s a perspective that they are more apt to relate with—I was here when they were here.”

Fett followed up with what it means both to the community and the school that kids want to come back to the area.

“It says something when people want to come back to the community that supported them and the school that had that influence on them,” said Fett. “It speaks very positively of the culture we have here at Frazee.”

The talk included the positive force CornerStone Youth and Community Center has been for area students and how it and the Student Services department are striving to help build connections between kids and those here to help them.

“We need each other; that is part of who we are as humans,” said Fett. “We got disconnected through technology and COVID, now we’re readjusting to bring that connection back.”

The four service providers discussed at length the cohesion they have formed as a quartet with matching and complementary interests and knowledge bases that have made them feel like a “dream team” and they are taking that positive mindset to each of their daily tasks in assisting today’s students.

Procedures and understanding need to change and evolve over time and what this group does is wildly different than what students of the 1980’s experienced, but the one thing that remains the same is the ability to proactively and positively affect students in helping them succeed through what can be very difficult and formative years. On the reverse end, Fett is able to share how often those efforts are appreciated years down the road in conversations with those students who have now graduated and come back to town a success.

“Never underestimate where your influence begins or ends,” said Fett.