Catholic Charities new counseling service ensures all students are set up for success

Bella Bailey

Multimedia Correspondent

At the beginning of the 2025-2026 school year, Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Covington launched a restructured counseling program — CARES, which stands for the Catholic Approach to Resilience, Engagement and Support. Currently the program is being piloted in three diocesan elementary schools, Holy Cross Elementary, Covington; Mary, Queen of Heaven School, Erlanger and Holy Trinity School, Bellevue.

The program was implemented to meet the increasing number of students needing counseling supports, while acknowledging the limited number of counselors available to meet those needs. CARES uses a three-tiered system, ensuring that each child is, “seen, valued and supported not only in academics but also in their emotional and spiritual growth,” wrote Chris Goddard, executive director of Catholic Charities, in the Partners Newsletter.

Catholic Charities has always provided one-on-one counseling. It is still available as tier three and is the most specialized and resource intensive. The two added tiers provide counseling to the broader student populus and small groups.

Jessica Gangwish, counselor to the three pilot schools, said, “tier one is the classroom groups. They are interactive, age-appropriate lessons. It’s to help with developing skills like emotional regulation, self-awareness, decision-making, communication, relationship building, overall life and social skills. Then cultivating empathy and, something we’re really focusing on is resiliency.”

Tier one counseling is effective for about 80 percent of students according to a research article co-authored by Jannik Nitz of the University of Cologne, Germany and available on the National Institute of Health website.

“Tier two,” continued Ms. Gangwish, “are those supportive, additional, one-to-one check ins or small groups. Part of that is screening the kids to promote early identification and get some early intervening, recognizing skills where students are struggling.” According to the Nitz article on multi-tiered counseling, about 10 to 15 percent of a class would benefit from Tier 2 counseling.

Three months into the pilot program, “it’s been going really, really well,” said Ms. Gangwish. “The schools have been really receptive, the teachers are really receptive, and the parents have been really receptive as well.”

The tiered approach is not new to those in the counseling profession with many public schools using what is known as MTSS, Multitiered System of Supports. The primary difference between CARES and MTSS is the faith-based support provided through CARES.

“We make it a point in each session to incorporate the faith in any way that we can, whether it be coping using your faith with prayer or Scripture, going to Mass or talking with a pastor,” said Ms. Gangwish.

Karen Kuhlman, a Catholic Charities volunteer, wrote in the Partners Newsletter alongside Mr. Goddard, “By grounding counseling in a Catholic understanding of the human person, the program helps students flourish academically, emotionally and spiritually, equipping them to live out their faith with confidence and purpose.”

Within this new program, there is a heavy emphasis on instilling strong virtues in students from a young age as a form of prevention, allowing them to have these important skills to fall back on.

“Anything major that may come up, we kind of drilled those skills already to prevent anything further down the road. Instilling these skills that are essential life skills that you need as a student, a high school student, in college, in your work, just as basic life skills. Especially communication and managing emotion,” said Ms. Gangwish.

“We are building a system that strengthens not only academics, but also resilience, compassion and hope – qualities that shape the whole person,” wrote Mr. Goddard. “In this way, Catholic Charities is helping our schools prepare students not only for success in the classroom, but for lives of faith, hope and love — lives firmly rooted in Christ.”