Aila Boyd and Lisa King
aboyd@mainstreetnewspapers.com
The Salem City School Board was updated on the division’s student services during a work session ahead of its January meeting by Dr. Randy Jennings, director of student services, and Dr. Elizabeth Arther, coordinator of student services.
Dr. Curtis Hicks, superintendent, said, “Meeting the mental and physical health needs of our students and staff is a top priority for our school division. The reality is that students can’t learn when they are in crisis.”
Dr. Arthur explained the presentation she gave when she said, “This year, 2023-24, we have received several additional grants that are helping us put some community-based services and physical-based kind of health services into the school settings. As a part of these two grants, we have brought in additional programming, that’s really what we were trying to highlight to the board. We have had traditional services such as TDT (therapeutic day treatment), music therapies, amongst others. We’ve had those in schools. We are also able to integrate them with the additional grant funding. That’s what we wanted to say to the board, we have never not had services, but those services are here, plus now we have a couple new ones because we got a couple of these grants.”
The grants that are used to help support the division’s efforts include School Based Mental Health Grant ($151,000 for school year 2023 and $195,000 projected for school year 2024), Community School Grant ($133,000 for school year 2024), Virginia Partnership for Mental Health and Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth—Vaping Prevention Grant ($151,000 for school years 2025-27).
She noted that her team is focusing on school-based mental health.
“We really are focusing on our school-based mental health group. It has allowed us to purchase into a program called ParentGuidance.org, and they really focus on three things: one is parent coaching. We are recognizing that in the community, it is taking longer and longer to get into mental health services. So, while parent coaching is not a mental health service, it is a coaching service, which sometimes is just what parents need.”
That program is available for the entire year. It was purchased in October of 2023 so it’s good through October of 2024. The division is hoping to redo it again next year for the fiscal school year 2024-25. “We are really trying to push that program out because it is completely free to our faculty, our staff, our families. And when I say families that can include grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. It is an amazing service that is there for our families, and again, it is completely free,” Arthur said.
The website also has an opportunity for families to Ask A Therapist. There can be questions that other families have asked and the counselor on staff has some posted responses to those more common questions, but participants can also ask their own questions as well. There’s also the opportunity to do some skill building, which involves a library full of different topics. They have videos that families can view and learn more about those particular skills. “Parent guidance is really what we were pushing. We really wanted the school board to know about that because we feel that is a phenomenal resource for our families, as well as our faculty and staff,” said Arthur.
Arthur also talked about the Parent Workshop, which is part of the parent guidance effort. “We have done two parent workshops on Zoom and we have one more to go in March. We have also been doing some workshops in person, face-to-face, at Andrew Lewis in the evenings. We have done two of those and our next one will be on Feb. 13,” she said.
The division’s student services efforts are also focusing on promoting its counselors.
“We have been able to hire some clinical counselors; we have two that are LCSWs and another that is contracted with Mainstream Mental Health. Those clinical counselors are in the school setting Monday through Friday, pretty much from 8-4, to do strictly individual work with students, one-on-one, and they also do some small group work as well,” she explained. “That differs from our school-based counselors, who in the old days we called guidance counselors; they are now just referred to as counselors. They do the academic portion, the registration, the guidance, the classroom academic work plus working with the kids. But these clinical counselors do strictly clinical work with the kids in the school setting with the parents’ permission.”
That is intended to be a short-term service, not intended to replace out-patient services or community-based services. Typically, there are six to eight sessions for the kids that meet the eligibility for that level of care. And typically, the eligibility is that the kids are in a significant level of crisis.
“We would love to serve all 900 kids at Andrew Lewis but many of those kids have counselors on their own or aren’t demonstrating the crisis level that impacts in the school setting,” she said. “These clinical counselors are focusing on those kids that are really having a significant level of anxiety, maybe school phobia, refusing to come to school, or attendance issues, that type of thing.”
At the beginning of the PowerPoint Arthur presented, it shows the most commonly diagnosed mental health disorders in children from 2016-19: ADHD 9.8%, Anxiety 9.4%, Behavioral problems 8.9% and Depression 4.4%. “And that was before the pandemic, before it exacerbated our mental health issues. But our mental health issues have always been there. Yes, those percentages have increased, but they were there beforehand too,” Arthur explained. The challenge is that the research is showing that not too many of the students received treatment in the community from a provider and that if they could get some additional treatment then their school success should go up too.
The division also meets the physical needs of students through a number of initiatives, including dental services The Patriot Walkamolies.
“As the saying goes, ‘students must be healthy to be educated and educated to be healthy,’ and our Salem School Division nurses help build the bridge between healthcare and education by helping to provide access to dental care,” Anna Haymaker, the division’s nurses coordinator, said.
February is National Children’s Dental Health Month and cavities are the most common yet preventable disease of childhood, the division said. To combat that, Smile Virginia, an in school dental program, has been providing dental services like x-rays, cleanings, sealants, extractions and fillings at each of our schools for eligible students since the spring of 2023.
In January of this year, New Horizons Healthcare provided a successful school-wide dental screening at G. W. Carver Elementary for over 370 students. They will be at East Salem Elementary later this month doing more good work.
Haymaker added, “The Salem City School nurses find value in health promotion. We realize that for some of our families there may be barriers to receiving dental services, so we are excited to bring dental care into the school and help remove access barriers. “It is rewarding and meaningful to grow this community relationship and partner together on behalf of our students’ oral health.”
Additional physical health needs are being met by East Salem Elementary Nurse Angela Schuyler-Meadows, who started a small after school program, The Patriot Walkamolies, for interested fourth and fifth graders. The focus of this program is on encouraging healthy habits, walking and physical activity. The real highlight is making healthy, fun and tasty snacks. Fleet Feet of Roanoke also donated pedometers so that the students can track their steps.
Courtesy photos
In reflecting on why she is so passionate about serving the students of Salem, Arthur explained that she’s been working on these types of issues in the Roanoke-Salem area for the past 25 years. “I was an LCSW worker out in the field before I came into the school division. I recognize the true mental health needs that our kids are struggling with every single day. And the opportunity to be able to provide services that are going to build their strengths and be strength focused while being able to achieve their educational goals and to have some sort of credentials to make their lives better is of the utmost importance to me,” she said.
“Elizabeth Arthur’s leadership, with support from Randy Jennings and Anna Haymaker, along with resources secured through the School-Based Mental Health Grant and the Community Schools Grant, combined with additional local funding is ensuring that students and families have access to the health resources they need,” Hicks said. “Dr. Arthur’s new role as the Coordinator of Student Services has paid huge dividends in her first year and all of these resources and services ensure that students get the mental and physical health support they need so that they can focus on learning and growing.”
