The Thompson School District will have a school resource officer and a mental health clinician on the phone together.
Loveland, Colorado — These days, seeing police cars outside schools is as common as seeing school buses.
Almost every school district has a school resource officer, but few have mental health clinicians working with them.
In northern Colorado school districts, social workers and sheriff’s deputies are paired to respond to mental health emergencies in schools. We have seen similar correspondent programs succeed outside the classroom in cities across the state.
“I like to think of myself as a resource queen. Find whatever you need, connect it, and make it low cost and efficient.” SummitStone Health Partner We also have a Joint Responder Program contract with the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office. “I am trained to understand behavior, and that behavior is a form of communication.”
Brendan Solano is the School Resources Officer for the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office. Together, they are part of the Thompson School District (TSD) New Youth Crisis Response Team. This is a program that dispatches side responders and clinicians to mental health calls within schools.
“I noticed that some students preferred talking to her over me, and vice versa,” says Solano. “Together, we can bring it to the table and work together as a team.”
The model is also successful outside of schools, with departments across the state launching co-responder programs. With the realization that not every call requires a badge and a gun.
Joe Vodjansky, safety and security manager at TSD, said, “There are many things throughout the school day that don’t necessarily require a law enforcement response, but that require a greater response than the school can give them.” “Our goal is to make sure they have the tools they need so they can prevent the next crisis, the next service call.”
Wojansky helped launch a program to work for the district. Sergeant Robert Cook worked at the sheriff’s office to start it.
“We really need a correspondent model to deal with mental health situations,” Cook said. ”
A week after launch, the team has already answered 12 calls.
It is believed to be the first correspondent program within a school in the state. Clinicians have the power to connect students and families with more resources than school counselors have. Everything is catered for, even for children in need.
“What we’re trying to do is bring more people to the table so we can have a stronger response and hopefully a more informed response to provide ongoing support. “If I could go to the students’ homes with them and offer more support, if I could work with the families outside of traditional school hours, I would be there.” I’m in.”
