[Ohiogift] Public Education NewsBlast - Nov. 11, 2015

Thu Nov 12 16:23:25 EST 2015

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?    November 12, 2015 - In This Issue:
Trauma Informed Schools: Part 2
Towards a new educational model for children at risk
Our powerful disconnect
Integrating the school service array
Keys to service integration
Cultivating non-cognitive intelligence
SEL gains a foothold
Consultation intervention for the very young
 'That great' of an unmet need
How to fund school-based centers
 Trauma Informed Schools: Part 2
In October, a video?showing a senior deputy yank a student from her seat and flip her desk at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina went viral on the Internet. This incident gained wide national attention, and demonstrates the need for trauma-informed classrooms.?In a Los Angeles Times article about the incident, Kent Peterson, an elementary school teacher, explains how he would try to "maintain a level of professionalism and be calm and direct" when handling conflict in his classroom. ?He states, "I'd ask them if they were ready to have a conversation with me. It would be quick and dirty; I wouldn't neglect my entire class for the individual. But I was trying to show them that I cared more about them than the perceived disrespect."?As Peterson exemplified, educators are in an ideal position and have an amazing opportunity to positively impact students through instruction, structured interactions, and community-building within classrooms and schools. We understand that educators are professionals and it is not our intention to confuse their professional identity with mental health specialists. However, research shows that positive adult relationships can go a long way to mitigate the effects of trauma and build resiliency in young people. Since educators are on the front lines in interacting with young students, the first step to creating those relationships and resiliency is by providing educators with the knowledge, strategies, and support to become trauma-sensitive.
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 Towards a new educational model for children at risk
A May 2015 paper from the Brookings Institution by Hugh Price argues that a crucial aspect of K-12 improvement -- the social and emotional development of children who chronically lag behind -- has long been ignored by legislators and educators. As a rememdy, Price proposes a new education model for poor and minority students: prevention-oriented youth-development programs inside school and out, with well-researched interventions that range from strengthening child social and emotional skills and "teaching" teachers around this, to organizing entire schools -- faculty, staff, and parents -- so that they attend to both the academic and social development of students. Price cites a recent study by the Center for Benefit-Cost Studies in Education that assessed available evidence on the economic value of social and emotional learning (SEL). It found that every dollar invested in SEL programs gets a return of eleven dollars. Price's proposal entails transforming schooling through a comprehensive and integrated set of community, school, and related initiatives, which would expand student-learning opportunities and place a strong programmatic focus on the social, emotional, and physical health needs that impede learning. As a potential model, he points to the residential National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program, a civilian intervention devoted to changing life prospects for high school drop outs, treating academic and social development as co-equal objectives.?More
 Our powerful disconnect
In a January 2015 commentary in Education Week, school psychologists Stephen Brock and H. Thomas Brant write that the report by Connecticut's Office of the Child Advocate on the Sandy Hook shootings highlights the continued challenges facing our mental-health system, where disconnects between our schools and communities play a critical role. These disconnects include inadequate and inconsistent access to mental-health professionals, fractured service delivery, poor information-sharing, and barriers to those seeking help. A 2013 study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 13 to 20 percent of American children "experience a mental disorder in a given year." Brock and Brant recommend that to repair our system, what's needed is a continuum of school and community mental-health supports, at one end universal promotion of mental health and wellness (social-emotional learning, and universal screening for problems), at the other end coordinated, individualized, and intensive school- and community-based mental-health treatment for students who develop mental disorders. The authors also feel that access to school mental-health supports should be broadened beyond special education; school-community collaboration must be strengthened to provide integrated and coordinated mental-health care; disconnects between school- and community-based mental-health providers must be eliminated; and families must be empowered to manage decisions and resources around their child's mental-health needs.?More
 Integrating the school service array
Even for professionals who work with adolescents and have seen it all, the number of youth with mental-health challenges is staggering, write Terry Richardson, Melissa Morrisette, and Laura Zucker in a November/December 2012 issue of Social Work Today. Half of all lifetime diagnosable mental health conditions begin by age 14, and one in five American adolescents shows significant symptoms of emotional distress, nearly 10 percent with symptoms that impair everyday functioning. Many schools have psychologists, social workers, and/or counselors, but some districts have taken a comprehensive approach that integrates a team of community mental-health professionals into the school service array. Services are therefore available to youth beyond the academic school year, and community mental-health clinicians, unlike school counterparts, can see students even if suspended, truant, in detention, or in the hospital. Many community mental-health providers have valuable and specific competencies, such as integrated substance abuse and mental-health services for youth; family, individual, and group therapies; medication management; case management; and an orientation toward assertive community outreach. Yet despite the incredible benefits and relative minimal costs of a school-based model, funding mechanisms outside of districts are essential, since without Medicaid or private or foundation funding, many comprehensive, school-based mental-health programs can't sustain themselves.?More

 Keys to service integration

A paper by the Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA argues that integrated efforts are essential for the establishment of school-based mental-health centers, and detail what's involved in the process, as well as how to execute it. According to the guide, three primary, complementary functions are fundamental to meeting mental-health and psychosocial needs: direct services and instruction; coordination, development, and leadership related to programs, resources, and systems; and enhanced connections with community resources. Integration must occur across three contexts: the center, where the expertise of staff must be combined; school programs and personnel, with coordination among all programs at the school and expansion of school-based and -linked intervention options; and community resources, with established lines of communication, working relationships, and mutual-support mechanisms for capacity building. Additionally, working smarter must translate into strategies for coordinating and redeploying resources. Properly constituted, trained, and supported, a resource management team can complement the work of the site's governance body through onsite overview, leadership, and advocacy for addressing barriers to learning and enhancing development. Successful integration depends on a variety of factors -- a clear policy vision, leadership, committed colleagues, and processes to overcome challenges to collaboration. The process is not easy, but rewards for students and all involved can be great.?More Cultivating non-cognitive intelligence
A strong base of research, along with a growing body of supporters, has fueled the adoption of mindfulness techniques to bolster student well, being in schools, reports Laura Cassani Davis in August 2015 in The Atlantic. A dozen grassroots initiatives have arisen in the U.S., programs that train teachers in mindfulness and generate their own curricula, the two largest being MindUp and Mindful Schools. Since its founding in 2010, for instance, Mindful Schools has trained thousands of teachers through its online programs, mostly in California, New York, and Washington, D.C., but with an estimated reach of 300,000 students. Reformers have long argued a fundamental connection between emotional imbalance and poor life prospects. Yet the U.S. system's focus on cognitive intelligence -- IQ scores and academic skills -- undermines the development of vital forms of non-cognitive intelligence, the foundations to good character, resilience, and long-term life fulfillment. These are what mindfulness seeks to address. That said, parents and administrators have challenged its use in schools based on its religious roots -- and in one instance managed to shut a program down. And the lack of evidence demonstrating long-term academic impacts of mindfulness raises concerns about it as an educational tool. Given the inherent nebulousness of mindfulness as a concept, and the grassroots status of the movement, these concerns are understandable.?More??Related: SEL gains a foothold
Schools that prioritize social-emotional learning are working under a particular premise, that teachers should manage student behavior beyond immediate compliance, working to shape more responsible and empathetic people, writes Liana Heitin in October 2013 in Education Week Teacher. This notion is gaining traction. Schools around the country now use programs like Responsive Classroom, Second Step, and the 4R's to teach young students to recognize and regulate emotions, understand others' perspectives, resolve conflicts, and build relationships. Evidence indicates such programs have positive results. In a meta-analysis of 213 research-based social-emotional learning (SEL) programs, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning found they boost student achievement, as measured by standardized tests and school grades, by an average of 11 percentile points. SEL programs also reduced conduct problems and emotional distress, and improved students' attitudes "about themselves, others, and school." SEL programs also focus on students repairing damage when they misbehave, rather than simply enduring punishment. Still, Tom Roderick, creator of the 4R's SEL program, stresses that "this is not about therapy. It's about teaching kids skills and giving opportunities to practice and apply them to real, life situations. A class meeting is not therapy -- it's problem-solving."?More Consultation intervention for the very young

In a February 2015 profile in The Hechinger Report of Laura Wiley, an early childhood mental health consultant in Chicago, Sarah Neufeld describes Wiley's job as listening to adults so they can create emotionally healthy environments for children. Wiley trains teachers and others who work with young children to recognize trauma, which so often causes misbehavior. She supports teachers in confronting cultural biases, and in forging relationships with parents, showing how to recognize families' strengths and promote mental wellness before problems develop. Adverse childhood experiences like violence and family dysfunction predict everything from academic failure to cancer and heart disease. In 2005, Yale professor Walter Gilliam published the first research showing preschoolers are expelled at three times the rate of children in kindergarten through 12th grade, with young African-American boys most vulnerable. He realized the issue can't improve unless teachers receive help managing challenging behavior, and has zeroed in on consultation intervention as promising and cost-effective. A recent study found it reduced preschool expulsions by half. It also improves children's emotional well-being in the pivotal years before kindergarten, and boosts staff retention and job satisfaction in an industry with rampant turnover. Consultation is now being tried in home visiting programs, domestic violence shelters, pediatrician's offices -- anywhere serving young children. Other efforts are taking similar services to older kids.?More ?'That great' of an unmet need

Mental health services are the fastest-growing component of school-based healthcare, reports Jamie Chamberlin in August 2009 in The Monitor of Psychology. ?In the last 10 years, school-based health centers with mental-health professionals have more than doubled. "You hear people say at school-based healthcare meetings that if there has to be a choice between a full-time nurse practitioner and a full-time mental-health provider, that they'll take the mental-health provider because the unmet need is that great," says Julia Lear of the Center for Health and Health Care in Schools. Yet some school mental-health experts say that school-based health centers are an inefficient use of public funds, especially in urban areas with untapped community mental-health resources. School clinics, they maintain, aren't always cost-effective for long-term mental health disorders, and are a low priority when funding dries up. In general, money to pay for school mental-health centers comes from state grants, partnerships with local hospitals or public health departments, or grants from nonprofits like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has funded more than 80 centers. Federal funding is scant. This financial tenuousness is one reason centers haven't caught on, says Mary Walsh of Boston College, who conducts research on mental-health delivery in schools. She recommends that schools in urban areas forge effective links with established community centers.??More How to fund school-based centers

Three case studies by the Center for Health and Health Care in Schools illustrate successful models in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C. for financially sustaining school mental-health services. Strategies include systems in place for billing Medicaid and other third-party payers, and supplementing these patient-care revenues with public and private grant dollars and in-kind contributions. All three community-based programs maximize all possible sources of support for their school mental-health services, including in-kind contributions from the school systems, and grants from public and private entities to subsidize non-billable services. All three programs had "clout" that was either intrinsic to the program or existed because of established connections to people and/or organizations with influence, bringing insurance providers to the table to negotiate. All three programs set clear productivity expectations for clinicians around maintaining a balance of billable versus non-billable services, and invested in the administrative infrastructure to support billing capacity. All three programs also know the eligible services, clients, and providers of commercial and public insurance covering the students they served; with this essential information, school mental-health programs were well-positioned to negotiate more effective third-party billing arrangements and rates. In these ways, all three community-based programs developed and executed business plans that ensured long-term availability of services.?More??Related:

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