Increasingly entangled issues of truancy and the lack of child mental health services existing in Madison and surrounding area schools dominated discussion at Madison’s Education Committee meeting Wednesday.
Social worker Jeannette Deloya and city of Madison Municipal Court Judge Daniel Koval reported on an extensive new plan of recommendations for enhancing child mental health services on an education spectrum and the standard procedure for addressing the roots of attendance issues for “habitually truant” students, respectively, in two separate presentations.
“One of the concerns is that mental health [issues] really shut people down,” Madison school board member Dean Loumos said.
Both presenters reiterated a common theme regarding child well-being in the classroom: the necessity of more mental health services.
“We’re working on major system changes in terms of mental health and mental support services,” Deloya said. “And that’s exciting, but also daunting.”
In her summary of the Mental Health Task Force findings, which met over an 18-month period, Deloya emphasized the school system as the “de facto” first mental health provider, with the juvenile justice system as the second.
“When we’re talking about the school to prison trajectory, this is what we’re referencing,” Deloya said.
Citing that one in five youth have a mental health condition, Deloya said if the children are either students of color or living in poverty, they are less likely to receive treatment. Around 80 percent of children with mental health conditions never get the treatment they need.
The “benefit” of the plan is there are many private and public health care providers and officials and public working on the issue, according to Deloya, who characterized the group as “highly collaborative.” She cited a willingness to forgo competition for those answering the Request for Proposals for mental health contracts into schools, as providers are often listing each other as references in their submissions.
“This is a community responsibility around children’s mental health.” Deloya said. “We’re funding a change in how we do things.”
For Koval, who splits his days regarding truancy court matters between East, Memorial, West and La Follette High Schools as well as other area schools, the issues can be traced back to mental health.
“I would say that the majority of the kids I see are referred to counseling of some sort,” Koval said.
