ROANOKE, Va. – The Virginia Department of Education is tackling mental health needs for its students.
The department launched an Office of Behavioral Health last week. It’s a virtual one-stop shop where students and families can go for support with services they might need.
“We encourage students and families to work directly with their schools, but we can provide coordinated resources for both schools and families,” said Superintendent of Public Information Lisa Coons.
Coons said the new office will help reduce chronic absenteeism.
“What we know is that often students are experiencing chronic absenteeism because of underlying mental health issues or other barriers to schools. So, it makes a whole lot of sense for the person who supports mental health issues to be sitting next to the person who is thinking about chronic absenteeism and helping students and families reengage in school,” said Coons.
Alleghany Highlands Public Schools Superintendent Kim Halterman said she also sees mental health as one reason students might be missing school.
“Like most school districts in Virginia, we have seen an increase in chronic absenteeism, which is students missing 10% or more of the school year. That’s a significant concern and I think it can have a lot of multiple variables that affect that. One of those certainly can be mental health,” said Halterman.
We spoke with Halterman about the new Office of Behavioral Health.
“What’s exciting for us is there are some local partnerships that already exist that hopefully can hook into other things that are available from the state and that will be exciting to have resources flowing in from both directions for our students. We really appreciate that,” said Halterman.
She also said her district is already helping students with mental health needs through various programs.
They include buddy benches for elementary school students. These are orange benches students can sit on during recess, who might either want a friend or someone to play with during this period.
Also, Speaker Stan Pearson II spoke to the middle school and there’s even a civic leader that is working on adding a resiliency class option for middle school students.
“Just like us as adults, our students are whole people, and they are affected by many many things they too had a lot of different stressors and changes in the last few years, particularly with the pandemic,” said Halterman.
Coons also said the Virginia Department of Education created a task force that will revise how special education works within schools.
The department is working on programs to address student drug use.
“And last but not least, we know that students and families have barriers, whether it’s food insecurity, whether it’s homelessness, whether it’s other challenges such as our military-connected family challenges,” said Coons. “That student services office now sits right next to the Health and Wellness, next to the Behavioral Health and Instructional Support, and they really have come together to coordinate, to develop and design comprehensive resources, comprehensive technical assistance and really a one-stop shop for those schools those families that need those resources to support things that are barriers to our academics in education.”