SNHU Agents of Change Podcast · SNHU Social Sciences

Season 5 Ep 13: Education in Crisis: Understanding the Opioid Epidemic's Impact

·22 min·1 clip

Dr. Kathy Welby says three times the average overdose rate was showing up in schools before anyone named it.

1. SNHU's Agents of Change Podcast episode focuses on Education in Crisis: Understanding the Opioid Epidemic's Impact. 2. Ron Pedro hosts Dr. Kathy Welby, a 2019 SNHU Doctor of Education graduate and assistant professor at Merrimack College, whose research matters because she studies opioid-related effects on schools. 3. The episode asks how the opioid epidemic shows up in classrooms, families, districts, and educator work, and what schools can do next. 4. Welby says she returned to public schools in 2016 after extended maternity leave and noticed many more IEP meetings, Department of Youth Services involvement, and surrogate parents. 5. She describes a school she later believed would fall under an opioid crisis region, with what she calls three times the average overdose rate. 6. Her early investigation came from talking to teachers anecdotally, where she learned that many students were dealing with substance abuse at home. 7. Welby says her administrator responded to her concerns with 'it is what it is,' which pushed her to pursue the topic in research. 8. Her dissertation began as a way to answer why special education numbers seemed to be doubling and tripling. 9. She says the project became much broader than special education once teacher trauma, student trauma, and district-level strain became visible. 10. Welby describes the scope as a full spectrum study involving schools, families, law enforcement, and community resources. 11. She says a Maine school district stood out for trying a community-based strategy that includes schools, law enforcement, and other local partners. 12. Stage three of her project used surveys and follow-up interviews with school districts in crisis regions to test whether the findings could be generalized. 13. Welby says the same themes kept appearing across those districts, which made her think the problem was not isolated. 14. She names the ACE study, the crack epidemic of the 1980s, and neonatal abstinence syndrome as major foundations for her thinking. 15. Her coding produced themes such as student experience, location of school, peer behaviors, poverty, transiency, homelessness, parent instability, and substance use. 16. She also found school-level themes including teacher trauma, teacher retention, student attendance, academic achievement, special education, and providing students' basic needs. 17. The conversation shifts to solutions, and Welby says targeted professional development is needed because many teachers do not know neonatal abstinence syndrome or the effects of adverse childhood experiences. 18. She favors trauma-sensitive learning environments, consistent district programs, school-based community resources, and better tracking for students moving between states. 19. Listeners who work in education, special education, school counseling, public policy, or community health will get the most from this discussion. 20. Listeners looking for a light general-interest interview may skip it, because the topic stays focused on research, schools, and systems.

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