School system guts mental health and advocacy program
It would appear that my son graduated from school just in the nick of time. The Knox County school system has decided to eliminate a major component of the special education services for students with mental illnesses and brain disorders. Holy crap ... I can't imagine trying to deal with the schools without the Bridges program.'Bridges' program replaced
Knox schools substitute own mental-health plan after center's cost rises
By ERICKA MELLON, mellone@knews.com
June 17, 2006
The Knox County school system is ending a 14-year-old mental health program administered by the Helen Ross McNabb Center and replacing it with a less costly, in-house model.
John McCook, Knox County's director of special education, said Friday the district rejected the center's proposal to continue offering its program in the schools because the price tag doubled to about $1.27 million.
The decision has troubled several parents, who praise Helen Ross _McNabb's "Bridges" program for reforming their children's behavior. The program last year served about 250 students with conditions such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
McCook said the district will be able to offer a similar program, starting July 1, for roughly $1 million. And the district likely will be reimbursed for part of the cost by TennCare, the state's health-care program, he said.
What this program did was provide each student with their own liaison. These liaisons are licensed mental health social workers, employed by the mental health center, NOT the schools, and were tasked with assisting their students and their families, providing support, information, advocacy and counseling. The true scope of what all they did would take too long to write out, but I will suffice to say that without my son's liaisons, we never would have made it. I seriously doubt that what the schools are proposing as a replacement will be anything but a pale imitation of what these folks were.
The biggest loss will be the advocacy aspect. Being NOT employed by the schools, the liaison were able to truly be on the students' side, to be their champion and advocate. For me, as a parent, that was invaluable because I could make my concerns known to the liaison, who could then present that to the people at the school. No muss, no fuss, no worry that I would get pissed off and yell at them ... which was a very likely thing to happen on several occasions. These folks really know how to get things done. And they were really *there* for the kids and families.
Posted by LissaKay on 06/17/06 at 05:00 PM in
Bipolarville
• (1) Comments • Pop Up • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink •
Keywords for this entry: bipolar, bipolarville, education, mental health, schools, special education
• (1) Comments • Pop Up • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink •
Keywords for this entry: bipolar, bipolarville, education, mental health, schools, special education
Next entry: Fascism at Freecycle
Previous entry: Video Cat Blogging
Posted by Bridges L. on 07/15 at 11:43 AM