Excerpts from the WEA on-line bulletin on Mental Health ...



Excerpts from the WEA on-line bulletin on Mental Health Services for Students in Washington State.

Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) Learning and Teaching Support Programs

OSPI programs that currently address mental health needs of Washington students are a valuable resource for educators who identify students in need of mental health services. Although not an exhaustive list of possible programs that could help, there are three that are highlighted below.

School Health Services/School Nurse Corps Program

The availability of school health services varies throughout Washington State schools. In some buildings—depending primarily on the level of the needs of the student body—a full time registered nurse is on the premises full time. Other buildings share the services of a part-time itinerate nurse and at least one school district in Washington has no access to school nursing services. Although the level of nursing support still falls short of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommended staffing level, the situation in our state has improved in the last five years when the legislature created the OSPI School Nurse Corps Program. The School Nurse Corps program provides school nursing services to those districts without nursing services and provides a school nurse supervisor at each educational service district (ESD). These nurses administer the program, provide consultation and training to school districts, and provide direct service to students as time permits.

School nurses—both the ESD level supervisors and the building level staff—may be extremely busy with a multitude of nursing related tasks but they are often the most accessible health care professional to educational staff. Educators should not hesitate to seek their assistance regarding a student they suspect or know to be struggling with mental health issues. Schools that have a health clinic on site may have nursing as well as other health care professionals available for students.

For more information on school health services and for a 2005 summary report on the School Nurse Corps Program see

Readiness to Learn

Readiness to Learn is an OSPI administered program that was created by the Education Reform Act passed by the Washington State Legislature in 1993. The “primary purpose [of the program] is to reduce barriers to learning and link education with human service providers in an effort to assist in the removal of non academic barriers and ensure that all children are able to attend school prepared to learn.” The program works with school administrators and educators to link with other public and community resources that can provide support to at-risk students and their families.

School districts who wish to participate in the program, must respond to an annual Request for Proposal released in June of each year. During the 2004-5 school year, there were 110 school districts and 350 buildings across Washington participating in the Readiness to Learn program. The program reports that during that same year, over 4,000 families and over 5,000 children were served with high percentages of families reporting positive outcomes and satisfaction with the program. Both in-school detentions and school suspensions declined after introduction of the Readiness to Learn program. The largest percentage of students referred for services were those in kindergarten through fifth grade at 62% with only 23% of the referrals among the older ages. For more information, see or contact Ron Hertel at 360-725-6049 or Rhertel@ospi.wednet.edu

Prevention Intervention Services Program

Nine Educational Service Districts (ESDs) and four of the largest school districts in the state—Seattle, Tacoma, Kent and Spokane—currently have Prevention Intervention programs. This program provides funding and technical assistance to educational service districts and school districts through the placement of specialists in schools responsible for the implementation of comprehensive student assistance programs. The funding for these programs comes primarily from DSHS, Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse money provided to OSPI which then funnels it to those districts interested and able to provide a 20% match. Typically, the match comes from the federal Safe and Drug Free Schools money that is provided to each district.

Program services generally include early alcohol, tobacco, other drug prevention and intervention services, assistance with referrals to treatment and other community resources, and recovery support services. However, the programs differ across the state in how they are organized and managed. For example, some of the prevention intervention specialists—who must be chemical dependency certified professionals and may also be mental health therapists—come to the schools on a contractual basis, others are employees of the school district. The Prevention Intervention program is well established in most districts that participate and students can self-refer or educational staff can refer a student who is in need of help. The focus is on drug and alcohol abuse, but often this problem coexists with a mental health disorder and both must be addressed. Depending on the situation, a specialist may provide the appropriate treatment or refer the student to outside professionals or services. Specialists also provide training in many districts.

There is a great deal of material available on the OSPI website under the School Safety Center link. The Safety Center includes a great deal of resource material for schools, communities, and families on the broad scope of school safety related issues including suicide.

For more information, call Denise Finch at 360-725-6059, dfitch@ospi.wednet.edu or Mona Johnson at (360) 725-6044, MMJohnson@ospi.wednet.edu

School-Community Collaborative Programs in Washington State

As mentioned earlier, OSPI and the MHD are completing a comprehensive state-wide study of school-community mental health programs to identify exemplary programs. Although there are many others that will be described by the OSPI/MHD report later in the year, educators may be interested in learning about the 3 Rivers Wraparound Project to get a sense of one school-community collaborative mental health services model in Washington.

3 Rivers Wraparound Project

The 3 Rivers Wraparound Project is designed to coordinate and provide support and services to the families of at-risk children and teens in Benton and Franklin Counties.[i] The project is focused on serving children with challenging emotional and behavioral disorders in their own homes and communities. The project uses a family-centered, strengths-based and cost effective approach. In essence, the project coordinates the services from traditional providers with natural supports identified by the family and the child—which often includes teachers or other educational staff. This requires the development of a “wraparound” comprehensive service plan for those children who are at high risk for psychiatric hospitalization, state-funded group home placement, or the juvenile justice system. Services to be coordinated can include counseling, in-home, in-community, in-school mentoring and advocacy, tutoring, vocational training, or career development.

All collaborative programs have specific criteria that must be met for children to qualify and 3 Rivers Wraparound is one that focuses on the most seriously mentally disturbed children. The data collected to date shows that this intensive, collaborative and comprehensive wraparound approach involving the natural supports of children is very successful in keeping children in their communities and participating in peer appropriate services.[ii] The down side, however, is that it serves only a few children in need. To be eligible for services, a child must have a “current serious mental health diagnosis” and involvement with at least two service providers—such as the mental health division, special education, or juvenile justice. It is an approach that is meeting the needs of some children—and apparently with a great deal of success. But there are many other children who are not receiving the interventions they need to result in successful outcomes.

The Project Director is Colleen Kandle. She is available to talk about her program to those interested and she can be reached at 509-783-2085 in Kennewick. There is currently no information available via the Internet.

Information on other successful program will be available on the OSPI website in the near future and will provide schools and educators a great deal of valuable information on developing collaborative programs for their students.

-----------------------

[i] 3 Rivers Wraparound pamphlet (received by author from Colleen Kandle, Project Director.)

[ii] Id.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download