Because of teenage suicides, anxiety, and emotional problems in Skyline, the school pshycologist’s goal is to accomodate these problems and provide positive alternatives to something severe.
Victoria Hatton, who is our current psychologist, studied suicide in adolescence at the University of Utah for a doctorate. As she got close to getting that degree, according to Hatton, “the school psychologist at Skyline was about to retire.” She said, “My supervisor, the school psychology coordinator at Granite School District, was trying to decide who would be at Skyline.”
As that happened, she made a decision to come here to help students because “at the time, I was aware that there had been some students that died by suicide at Skyline in the years of previous.” Hatton remarked, “I wanted to come to Skyline to see if I could help, because I knew that something that was a problem and something that I was studying, and I knew some things that could be helpful.”
Hatton doesn’t only help with suicide, as there can be other problems like anger issues, bullying, or even emotional problems as she looks at the situation and tries to see what is missing or what scale she needs to use.
Hatton said, “A lot of times when someone is struggling with an emotional challenge, it’s in part because they need to understand how to manage it. If someone has anger issues, for example, we would learn how to manage that anger.”
However, what students should know about Hatton is that she is not a therapist. “One of the things people think that I am is a therapist, so they think they’re gonna come in and have therapy with the school psychologist, and that’s not what I do,” Hatton said. “I’m going to work with students who are struggling and help them to learn something about themselves, learn something about their problem and something about how to solve their own problems.”
