Program that helps young students adjust to school is in jeopardy

Photograph by Sarah Gilbert

Gov. Jerry Chocolate-brown's  line-particular veto last month of $15 million for a 2-decade-former plan addressing mental health needs among elementary school children has left districts that relied on the funds with hard choices about whether to keep the program going.

The Early Mental Wellness Initiative uses unstructured play and social skills teaching to aid shy, misbehaving, or otherwise at-gamble K–3 students feel comfortable in the classroom and on the playground. The program has been peculiarly important during tough economical times, said Scott Lindstrom, student back up coordinator for Chico Unified. "Parents are at their wits' end because of financial pressures. Nosotros need information technology at present more than ever."

Brown's veto was consistent with his position that, instead of funding specific programs, the state should permit schoolhouse districts set priorities for spending money. "While I capeesh the importance of prevention and early intervention services, I believe that school districts are in the best position to determine whether these services should be funded at a local level," he wrote in his veto bulletin.

The $15 million saved with the veto will become office of full general education funding for all school districts, forcing those districts with an Early on Mental Wellness Initiative program to back up it by cutting money from other programs that are already stretched thin.

In 2011–12, the program served well-nigh 16,000 K–iii students in well-nigh half of the state'southward school districts with simple students, at a cost of less than $1,000 per kid in state dollars. Districts were required to friction match state funds, frequently with in-kind contributions such as classrooms and equipment.

Assemblymember Susan Bonilla (D-Concord), who chaired the education subcommittee for the Associates Finance Committee, said she is concerned the program volition disappear in many districts. If young children's mental health condition is not addressed, she said, "the children are set up to non learn, to not experience like they can be successful in a classroom environs."

"These are the very children who end upwards falling through the cracks in the system," Bonilla said, "and information technology is plush coming together their needs after."

Some districts are planning to go on at to the lowest degree role of the plan alive. Chico Unified in Butte Canton will continue the plan, but it will only serve about half as many students, Lindstrom said.

San Ramon Valley Unified in the San Francisco Bay Area will rely on parent and school fundraisers to support the program in some schools, said Paul Foucart, managing director of curriculum and instruction, though it will be much smaller than in past years.

Other districts, such as Elk Grove Unified most Sacramento, accept eliminated information technology, even though the district considered the plan "highly effective," said Carl Steinauer, director of educatee support and health services. Elk Grove had relied on land funding to pay for plan staff salaries, he said. Steinauer said he is pursuing grants to get more counselors on staff to make upwardly for the loss, just those grant funds cannot be used for the Early Mental Health Initiative program.

Jane Claar, coordinator of child welfare and attendance for Twin Rivers Unified near Sacramento, said the program will be eliminated in her commune as well unless principals, along with their school leadership teams, reevaluate their budgets at the beginning of the school year and find a style to fund it for their schools.

Therapeutic play

The heart of the Early Mental Health Initiative is the Primary Intervention Program (PIP), which provides one-on-one, non-directive therapeutic play. A paraprofessional, trained past school counselors or psychologists, spends about 30 to 40 minutes a calendar week for an average of 12 to 15 weeks with the struggling child in a room with toys, such as sand trays and dollhouses.

Young children address their emotional issues through play, Lindstrom said. Being in a supportive surroundings where cipher is expected of them allows them to work out their feelings and connect to the adjutant.

"Aides are able to wait for that child to flower," he said. "Especially as class sizes are growing, the teacher doesn't accept fourth dimension. Kids go a deep message of acceptance, a sense of existent security at the school."

Paul Teuber, a school psychologist with Elk Grove Unified, gave the example of a kindergartener named Herbie who had lost his two-year-onetime sister in an accidental drowning that he witnessed. The five-twelvemonth-onetime began to withdraw and wouldn't talk to his classmates or teacher. School administrators suggested the PIP program. After a few sessions, the trivial boy began to talk to the aide, the only person he would speak to at schoolhouse. Eventually, he opened up to everyone.

Teuber said Herbie's mother told him, "I lost one child in the drowning, and I was watching my other child die before my eyes. This program has brought my child back."

In a letter in support of the program, she wrote: "He needed to go somewhere where he could talk to someone and not exist judged or thought of as broken."

Debbie Root, a school psychologist with San Ramon Valley Unified, said the program is cost-effective considering shy students who won't speak up in class are oftentimes retained for another year of kindergarten at a much higher cost to the state. Students who are experiencing trauma at home, perhaps because parents are divorcing or a family unit member is terminally ill, may non exist able to focus in class and end upward labeled with attention deficit disorder (Add together), she said, which could require plush Special Education services.

Duerr Evaluation Resources in Chico has evaluated the program for 20 years using feedback from teachers to make up one's mind the program'southward bear upon. In the last evaluation, for the 2010–11 school year, Duerr reported that 79 percentage of participating students improved every bit a effect of the interventions – a rate that has been consistent over the years. The program was successful with all ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

"This was the single almost effective plan I had e'er studied," said Scott Duerr, executive director of the firm, who has been doing evaluations for 30 years.

Besides PIP, the program besides funds pedagogy in social skills for minor groups of students, typically 2 to 4, to help them learn to empathize, problem solve, and control their anger. Sometimes the groups address specific issues, such as bullying, or aid students facing similar problems, such equally children whose parents are divorcing.

Lindstrom recalls how one family went to family counseling and the 2nd-grader, who had been in the Early Mental Wellness Initiative program, taught her whole family breathing techniques to use when they got aroused.

Funding from the program can too exist used to railroad train teachers in how to help young students, or to provide classroom curricula on issues such every bit building friendships, handling bullies, and cultural diversity.

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Source: https://edsource.org/2012/program-that-helps-young-students-adjust-to-school-is-in-jeopardy/17673