Connecting Classrooms and Communities: Duke Student’s Internship Advances Mental Health Education

Anushka Kumar is in Spain this semester, studying abroad and soaking in the experience.

“It's been really cool to be in a totally different place and see how they teach — the structure of classes — and the academic and social culture,” says Kumar. “Traveling is just an experience I’ve always really wanted.”

Kumar, a junior, is one of the many students taking full advantage of the many opportunities Duke offers — around the world and also here in Durham.

A few months ago, Kumar participated in a Community-Engaged Summer Internship through Duke’s Center for Community-Engaged Scholarship, which helped advance her interdisciplinary, self-designed research project.

“I do research to identify psychological and neurological factors that predict healthy childhood development,” says Kumar. “And then I did the internship to translate that research into lesson plans and a resilience building curriculum for K–5 students.”

She’s looking at whether highly emotionally reactive adolescents go on to develop severe psychopathology mental health issues, like schizophrenia or bipolar I disorder, and whether access to mental health resources in schools can mitigate risks and promote healthier trajectories.

“Essentially what I’m trying to do is promote social-emotional competencies and goal-directed action among students through academic content in schools.”

Community-Engaged Curriculum at Camp Calvary

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Through service-learning in Duke’s Program in Education, Kumar tested the curriculum with more than 120 students at Lakewood Elementary School last spring. For her summer internship, she piloted her curriculum at the West End Community Foundation’s Camp Calvary, a summer camp serving children from across Durham, with a special focus on the West End neighborhood. 

“I am tying findings about school-based factors that predict better mental health trajectories in the students to my curriculum,” Kumar says. “I saw that social support helps promote better mental health trajectories among students. And so a lot of my lessons help kids build social competencies.

“Another thing that I saw is that in some contexts, access to mental health resources helps students with better mental health trajectories. So I’m trying to translate the work I’m doing in research to community-faced work in the Durham Public Schools and greater community.”

At Camp Calvary, Kumar implemented a social emotional learning (SEL) curriculum. She also empowered middle school students in the foundation’s Spark Academy to teach younger campers, trained staff and laid the foundation for a sustainable model that will continue into the school year.

“It’s all lessons that pull on the skills they’re learning in their classroom, but we link it to a social-emotional theme,” says Kumar.

Lessons in Social Emotional Learning

One of Kumar’s lessons asks students to choose a villain from a favorite book or movie and defend them in a mock trial.

“This lesson is really fun because it helps to reinforce some of the social studies skills kids learn in fourth and fifth grade about the American criminal justice system and trial by jury. It also helps kids see things from different perspectives and practice forgiveness and come up with plans to manage conflict.”

Kumar says children often choose Gru from the movie “Despicable Me.” “They talk about how Gru really changed when he had daughters,” she says. “Kids always talk about the role of family and helping villains overcome their past and writing apology letters and things like that.”

Another lesson uses biodiversity to teach students about embracing differences. The curriculum also helps link students to other community organizations that are part of the Bull City Community Schools Partnership to help get them one-on-one mental health support. 

“For example, in one of our lessons, we introduce kids to Coping Together, which is a family support group for families going through difficult times and kids with severe mental health issues,” says Kumar.

The Community Perspective

At West End Community Foundation, which since opening in 2002 has helped spark a revitalization of the West End neighborhood, Kumar’s work has been met with enthusiasm and appreciation.

“It is rare to see a young college student already developing a curriculum,” says Dosali Reed-Bandele, the foundation’s executive director. “It was very exciting to see a young person passionate about social emotional learning and also about teaching not only the students but also our staff, so that we can be a self-sustaining model.”

“Everybody needs social emotional learning,” Reed-Bandele adds. “Everybody needs some more understanding and care and how to identify if we have challenges in our mental health.”

Sparkle Yates, Camp Calvary’s director, saw firsthand how Kumar’s curriculum resonated with both staff and students.

“Anushka trained our staff with her social emotional lessons and our teenagers in Spark Academy, and they in turn taught those lessons to our kindergarten through fifth grade students," Yates said. “She was a great asset to what our program has to offer.

“One of the lessons that stuck out to me was one where she had the campers to create a fingerprint and they talked about how every individual’s fingerprint is unique and how it was important to be an individual,” Yates says.

The impact of Kumar’s work didn’t end with summer. She’ll continue working with West End Community Foundation and implement her curriculum in its after-school program in the spring, after she returns from Spain. 

“We’re happy that we can extend that with our after school program,” says Reed-Bandele. “We’ve had a long-standing relationship with Duke Community Affairs. We’re grateful for the partnership, finding new ways to support one another and engage the Durham community and build that bridge. We’re excited to continue working together.”

Looking Ahead

Kumar says the internship not only deepened her commitment to community-engaged work — it also helped clarify her academic path.

“I had a rough idea that I wanted to be in clinical psychology, but doing the internship helped me see I want to work with kids in either school-based or outpatient settings,” says Kumar. “It also helped clarify some of my research interests, not just in psychology, but in translating psychology into education. I applied for a Program II major — the title is ‘Childhood Neurodevelopment, Resilience, and Systems of Care,’ and it’s very much in line with what I was doing this summer, understanding how children learn and develop and then designing school-based programs and systems of care to support that.”

As she continues to refine her curriculum and expand its reach, Kumar is also thinking about how to involve more Duke students in teaching social-emotional learning.

Students and community partners interested in collaborating can reach out to Anushka Kumar at anushka.kumar@duke.edu. 

Main image: Anushka Kumar