Subject:
Support Collective Care Teams
Message:
Dear Legislator,
As a constituent who cares deeply about the wellbeing of students in our public schools, I urge you to support initiatives that recognize the important and distinct roles of our Collective Care Teams of health and mental professions in schools.
The roles of school counselors, school psychologists, school social workers or school nurses have very distinct differences and are not interchangeable. Knowing those differences is important when evaluating the health and mental needs of students. Understanding the role each of these professionals have on recognizing, responding to and improving the mental and health needs of our students is only the first step.
To meet these needs and support our students, we urge you to support legislation that explores what the appropriate staffing ratios should be for school counselors, school psychologists, school social workers or school nurses in a school district. As such, we call upon you to support the following legislation:
S.1577 (Brouk)/A.902 (Gunther)
- This legislation increases mental health services access in schools by requiring a study to be done on the amount of mental health professionals in schools and directs the state to develop a plan on the appropriate ratios.
S.7558 (Jackson)/A.7743 (Gonzalez-Rojas)
- This legislation requires the department of education to develop the appropriate ratios of mental health professionals-to-students in schools for all four collective care groups — school social workers, school psychologists, school counselors and school nurses.
As schools continue to serve more students with various health and mental health needs, it is imperative to build a baseline level of appropriate professional staff for students, in hopes of improving future outcomes.
Thank you for your consideration of these important issues. I respectfully ask that you bring up these issues with your conference, and I would greatly appreciate a response to this email.
Sincerely,
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