Knox High School Students in need of some additional emotional support and guidance are able to get that help through the Bowen Center’s Skills Coaching Services.
When the Knox School Board met for their first meeting of the month, they were informed more about the program which was first implemented last school year.
Assistant Director for Starke County Bradley Largent noted that he oversees the skills coaching services and shared how many staff members they have working with Knox students.
He told the board, “Currently, in Knox High School alone, we have four full time staff and when a student qualifies for those services, they are able to be seen between six and nine hours a week with one-on-one skills coaching services.”
Largent noted that the services they provide in school are covered entirely by Medicaid so in order to qualify a student must be eligible for that. Other qualifying factors include parental permission and the student’s level of need and willingness to engage.
He went on to explain how the skills coaches engage with students, “We see them in the classroom, to help redirect them while they’re in the classroom and with some students, we actually pull outside of the classroom to meet with them individually.”
He continued, “Those sessions are confidential but we work with them to build coping skills to deal with adverse environmental things, dealing with their anxiety, their depression, learning emotion regulation so they’re having less explosions in the classroom.”
Largent added that based on feedback from school officials, there was a decrease in visits to the principal’s office for disciplinary reasons as well as fewer guidance office visits overall.
High School Principal, Dr. Elizabeth Ratliff indicated that the Skills Coaches are a great resource for students because they’re seen as somewhat separate from the school. She said sometimes students don’t always feel comfortable coming to administrators or staff members with personal problems.
She added that oftentimes, the parents of a distressed student are often looking for solutions to help their child and the assistance provided through the Bowen Center branches into a student’s home and family lives as well.
In addition to the Skills Coaching at the high school level, Porter-Starke has started providing mental health services for students at the lower grade levels.
Superintendent Dr. William Reichhart provided feedback some about how far the schools have come since the start of last school year.
Reichhart explained, “A year ago, we didn’t have any of this in place so it will continue to grow and get stronger as we go through it but I’m very pleased as superintendent and this is really an outgrowth of our guidance counselors coming with a plan and saying we need some help and this is the result.”
Lots of valuable information was provided during the Bowen Center presentation and school board members asked important questions about the topic of addressing mental health in school.
This portion of the meeting will be featured during WKVI’s Kankakee Valley Viewpoints Program this Sunday at noon.
