In the event of a student tragedy in a public school in Lancaster County or Lebanon County, a “flight team” is usually sent to the school to provide support and counseling to the student. increase.
The team is made up of a pool of about 160 professionals scattered across neighboring county school districts consisting of school psychologists, social workers, or counselors.
“I sent a notice to those 160 people,” said Susan Billy, manager of behavioral health support services at IU13. It works.”
Flight teams typically stay at the school for one to three days, depending on their needs.
“The role of these flight team members is to provide support and stability to the students and try to get them back into a working environment as best as possible,” Billy said.
“Schools usually have rooms set up. Libraries are often used. They tend to be quiet and don’t get much traffic. Or they may be empty classrooms. Small space Students come in. There is usually a variety of things provided.There may be paper and markers.Sometimes, depending on the age of the student, there may be a moving corner.Children …Or maybe they will make cards and the school will be able to share those cards with their families, or their students. A paper chain that shares the memories of
Billy’s flight team’s latest adjustment came at Columbia School District’s Taylor Middle School following the passing of seventh-grader Robin Bittenbender this fall.
Two subsequent flight teams were deployed at different locations over the summer.
In other words, Billy said, no school is immune from student tragedy.
A flight team coordinated by Chester County IU13 stopped in Oktorara last January after a 15-year-old student committed suicide.
“In this case, we worked with our crisis management team to consider how we would communicate with students,” said Cale Hilboldt, Director of Student Services at Oktorara.
“In the upper grades, basically every homeroom teacher had the kids read out a prepared statement,” Hilbold recalls. “This gives students an opportunity to hear it if they haven’t heard it and to discuss it on the fly. …An opportunity for children to bond and get that character education through tragedy. …and Our staff made sure that they were very attentive to the needs and behavior of the students, especially this group of peers of the child.
Meet the Four-Legged Friends Helping Lancaster County Students Overcome Mental Health Challenges
at the state level
Additionally, Pennsylvania has enacted several laws in recent years to address both school safety and student mental health.
Law No. 71 of 2014 requires schools to adopt age-appropriate suicide awareness education for students.
Among the many items in Act 44 of 2018 is the creation of Safe2Say programs as a way to prevent shootings and violence in schools while responding to calls on bullying, self-harm and mental health. I was.
Act 18 of 2019 established requirements for schools to recognize the impact of trauma on students and provide support, and required staff training in a trauma-based approach.
Law 55 of 2022 amended Law 44 to provide two hours of annual training to staff on the topics of health awareness of behavior problems, bullying awareness, situational awareness, substance abuse awareness, suicide awareness and trauma-based approaches. Made it require training.
Aid in Pandemic Era
Then there are more basic approaches, such as pandemic-era federal aid that made school meals free for all public school students.
“Hungry kids don’t do well in school,” said Michele Owner, Superintendent of Octorara. “Sometimes even the simplest things, like making breakfast free or having cafeteria staff at the door to deliver it to the kids first thing in the day, can work.”
Before the pandemic started, about 20% of Oktorara students received free breakfast. Participation levels increased to nearly 60 percent by the end of last school year, when federal aid for providing free meals also ended. That’s why Octorara was left in a hurry to find out how it could continue to cover the increased cost of free meals.
“Inflation is real and food insecurity in this community is real, so we wanted families to come up with a step-by-step plan,” said the owner. “The other is that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”
The problem was averted on Sept. 22 when Gov. Tom Wolf announced a $21.5 million plan to provide free school breakfasts to 1.7 million students across the state this school year.
Meanwhile, the Oktorara School District, which has 2,000 students, about 20% of whom are from Lancaster County and the remaining 80% are from Chester County, has also used pandemic-era aid to hire two full-time social workers and two social workers. Added a person’s full-time mental health. Specialist.
