Beginning this week, students in the Allen County School District will have what is meant to be a new resource to help them through difficult personal issues. The District is working with local law enforcement agencies to implement “Handle with Care,” (HWC) a new program meant to inform school faculty of a student in need, in order to address those needs and help keep students on track academically and emotionally.
Last Thursday, Director of District Operation Brian Carter met with all of the system’s school resource officers to discuss HWC as well as other security measures. A child acting out in class or just going to sleep is nothing new, but HWC can help when there’s a serious personal reason for it. They may, for example, have had an overnight fire at their home, and made it to school owning only what they are wearing.
“They may have had a rough night,” Carter said. “We can get them to the counselors, and see what we can do to help. They may also be tired and hungry and need new clothes.”
The clothing can be provided through the Family Resource Centers in the elementary and middle schools or the Youth Services Center at Allen County-Scottsville High School. The program works in its current state by adding a computer option to the officers’ computer reporting systems in which they can note when school-aged children were involved in some kind of traumatic incident. The students’ names and ages—though no more detail of the incident—are confidentially forwarded to the appropriate school resource officers or administrators at their schools so the students’ needs can be determined and, where possible, met.
Allen County’s program is rooted in the concept behind the West Virginia Defending Childhood initiative, which included Handle With Care. HWC was started in 2013 by West Virgina Center for Children’s Justice Director Andrea Darr, in response to the opioid crisis, abuse and other factors. That program is now spreading to other states and has more recently been picked up by the Kentucky State Police.
The West Virginia program’s website, handlewithcarewv.org, notes some of the inspiration, including a national survey indicating that as many as 60 percent of all American children have been directly exposed to violence, crime and/or abuse. A full 40 percent had been exposed to two or more such incidents—and regular exposure to trauma directly affects the child’s physical, as well as emotional health and scholastic achievements.
Darr sums it up in this quote, as noted in the Kentucky Law Enforcement online magazine.
“Research tells us that trauma is going to hurt their ability to learn and build relationships. If an incident such as domestic violence takes place at home, the odds are the next day, the child comes to school, and they don’t have their homework, they’re acting out, or maybe they are hungry, but they’re not learning. A high percentage of the time, if the teacher isn’t properly trained, they are in the child’s face asking, ‘What is wrong with you?’ So it stacks more trauma on top of the existing trauma.”
Aside from violence or abuse, children are also traumatized by personal disasters, such as serious automobile accidents, the death of a parent or other loved one, or losing their home to fire.
Among those examples, right now, HWC can immediately alert schools of the auto accident, because law enforcement was likely involved. Administrators hope to expand the program to include input by fire departments as well as Department of Protection and Permanency personnel.
HWC won’t be perfect, especially in the early stages, Carter said—there may be bugs and special situations in which the program doesn’t have the desired effect.
Still, Carter said, it’s a strong starting point and may work well in tandem with a contract approved in the Allen County Board of Education’s February 17 meeting.
Starting in the 2020-2021 school year this August, Prestonburg-based Mountain Comprehensive Care Center will provide counselors in each school. The program costs the School District nothing aside from establishing office space in each school, as Mountain bills Medicaid or private-sector insurers for their services. If a child has neither, he or she is still seen.
The Mountain program is also expected to help the District with Senate Bill One, state school safety legislation passed in the 2019 session of the Kentucky General Assembly. Among other requirements, SB One mandates that schools add counselors at a rate of one to every 250 students enrolled, whether they seek the services or not. (Mountain aims for a 35-to-one ratio and will add counselors if needed.) This is intended to help students address emotional issues before they result in academic decline or, far worse, violence.
The District is already a pioneer among Kentucky counties, Carter noted, in terms of already having a resource officer for each school. Statewide, resource officer training is now also a required special segment for cadets coming through the Department of Criminal Justice Training Center in Richmond, Ky.
Regardless of how familiar school personnel are with a visitor, state-issued identification is now required for anyone visiting an Allen County school. The Raptor® ID scanning system can instantly let school staff know if the individual is listed on official sex offender registries.
Under SB 1, compliance officers tour schools regularly to check those facets, as well as emergency exits, that doors stay locked on buildings and classrooms, and that safe spaces for severe weather are available and known to students and faculty.