June 22, 2019, Burlington (NC) Times-News: ABSS retools elementary school mental health services https://www.thetimesnews.com/news/20190622/abss-retools-elementary-school-mental-health-services Changes are coming for Alamance-Burlington schools’ most vulnerable students. At the Board of Education meeting Tuesday, June 18, Chief Special Education Officer Keisha Banks presented a new structure for elementary school kids dealing with severe mental health issues. As it is now, these students are enrolled in Turning Point, based at Ray Street Academy in Graham. Since Ray Street doesn’t serve elementary-age children, these students don’t have the opportunity to mingle with their neurotypical classmates the way that middle and high schoolers in the program can, and that puts them at a disadvantage. As a result, they aren’t transitioning back to their home schools. Instead, many remain in the program throughout middle school and high school. They also lack access to electives like art and music, which could equip them with positive coping skills. It took a 2016–17 state audit for ABSS to realize these issues, and while corrections have been made since, this is the first time the district is proposing a major change. The proposed solution is this: Elementary school students will be moved out of Turning Point and placed in one of three elementary schools: E.M. Holt, Garrett or Hillcrest. In 2018–2019, 25 elementary school students were in need of these services. If that number increases, the school system will consider additional sites. Each school will have a “district-level Exceptional Children therapeutic classroom” equipped with the necessary staff and resources to care for these children. But they will have the added benefit of being able to interact with their neurotypical peers once they’ve shown they’re ready. This also benefits the other students. “We’ve talked with all three principals,” Banks said. “They are all excited about the classrooms coming to their buildings, and they’re excited about the possibilities that that will bring for their schools because the mental health therapist will be able to provide support for the [whole] school as well as training for teachers and staff on therapeutic strategies, not just for those therapeutic classrooms, but schoolwide, as well as restorative justice practices and trauma-informed therapy.” … Superintendent Bruce Benson stepped in to say he’d seen this model work elsewhere without issue. …
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Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Loss of Brain Trust features over 9,000 news stories published worldwide since January, 2017
Anne Dachel, Media editor, Age of Autism
http://www.ageofautism.com/media/
(John Dachel, Tech. assist.)
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What will happen in another 4 years? How can we go on like this? This is a national (and international) problem of monumental proportions. We have an entire new class of children who cannot be accommodated by the system: many are manifestly neurologically impaired. Meanwhile, the government and the medical profession sleep on regardless.
John Stone,
UK media editor, Age of Autism
The generation of American children born after 1990 are arguably the sickest generation in the history of our country.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
It seemed to me that with rising autism prevalence, you’d also see rising autism costs to society, and it turns out, the costs are catastrophic.
They calculated that in 2015 autism cost the United States $268 billion and they projected that if autism continues at its current rate, we’re looking at one trillion dollars a year in autism costs by 2025, so within five years.
Toby Rogers, PhD, Political economist
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