Carrie Seidman: Repairing, rather than building, our children's mental health
The Herald-TribuneNov 13, 2018
I was already aware that 90 percent of this
"I feel very, very strongly that those funds are well spent, because children and their families, staff, administrators and all get immediate expertise that's right here," said Assistant Superintendent/Chief Academic Officer
This approach, which also connects families to "wrap around" social services, has already proven successful at Alta Vista and Gocio elementary schools, where positions have previously been partially funded by nonprofits like the
The remainder of the funding, said
These goals are being achieved through a variety of approaches, said Giacolone, including implementation of the "high expertise teaching" principles of educator
"Every child is getting that kind of training in what it takes to stay mentally healthy, in the way we should treat others and in the way we communicate," Kingsley said.
What they aren't getting, at least in the opinion of Dr.
Ever since developing "The Social Black Belt" -- a resiliency training program for children based on a book for adults he wrote more than a decade ago with Dr.
"Anyone is going to have thousands of losses in life," says Cortman. "You need to learn at an early age how to grieve and how to heal. This is self-empowerment, and the difference between helping and enabling. If kids learned these things at an early age, they'd be more prepared for the rest of their lives."
Cortman said he got a verbal commitment from Bowden to implement the Social Black Belt, at a cost of
Instead, the district went with a "classroom management system" called CHAMPS, which puts in place a uniform structure of "expected classroom behaviors in real time," according to Giacolone.
"It's not ritual compliance," she said of the program, which is available free of charge to the district. "It's having expectations in place, teaching those expectations and then helping hone those behaviors."
Giacolone tried to explain to me how these structures would support the same goals of student stability and success. But after taking a look at some CHAMPS materials, I wondered. CHAMPS is an acronym for the behavioral expectations for students in the classroom: C is for "conversation" (when it's appropriate to talk), "help" (when and how to ask for assistance), "activity" (the need to focus on the activity or assignment) "movement" (limitations on leaving your seat), "participation" (when and with whom you may interact) and "success" (what will be achieved by adhering to all the other principles).
Now I certainly understand the need for student decorum; no one can successfully teach in an out-of-control classroom. And I applaud all of the efforts the district is making to strengthen its focus on mental health, especially since, by not having made it a priority for far too long, there is a lot of work to do to address existing behaviors. But I think we're comparing apples to oranges.
I can't help but feel that -- just as in our adult mental health system -- all the money and the focus is going to the crisis end of the equation. Since we can't create a world free of trauma and adversity, shouldn't at least part of the solution be to equip our children, from a very young age, with the tools to better handle the challenges they will inevitably face? As
"I would hope in the future we'll get more money for mental health this year and we can begin to do more on the front end and not so much on the back end," said board member
"Common sense tells you it's better to be proactive than reactive and trauma is what all our kids are facing. I think the Social Black Belt could be a wonderful part of dealing with things. But right now we have to clean up what exists with our students who are in a really bad place."
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