Mental health has recently been a point of contention in the Parkway district, with the new director of social and emotional support service, Cherie Magueja, proposing a fusion of the care coordinator and the social worker positions at Parkway schools.
“The idea is that we have staff, both care coordinators and social workers, combining both of those roles into a different title, like a mental health specialist, so they do both the roles of social work… and they are also therapists, care coordinators are much of the same, and so combining the role of both social work and care coordinators into one, will allow us to have one mental health licensed clinician in each of our buildings,” Magueja said on December 9 at the Board of Education meeting.
Counselor Lelia Flagg notices how coming from a different district could impact how Magueja views mental health in schools.
“One of the things that has been new from the district level is we have a new director of social and emotional support, that person is coming in from a different district, Francis Howell, and has said this is the new structure that I think Parkway needs to operate from,” Flagg said.
Although this potential shift in mental health services will affect both the Social Worker and the Care Coordinator positions greatly, there is still uncertainty. This unpredictability affects the Care Coordinator at Central, Esmeralda Felix.
“The district has not been clear with us. We don’t know when we’re going to interview, we don’t even know what the job description looks like,” Felix said.
This change could bring some challenges, such as a higher workload for the single mental health specialist position.
“That person who is providing mental health [help] is going to have a lot of burden on them and a lot of work to do. So there’s going to be a higher burnout rate,” Felix said.
Outside of the position holder being overworked, another potential challenge is that children who are in need of resources won’t be able to access them. This could lead to further mental health related issues.
“If children’s basic needs are not being met, we can never, ever discuss their mental health, because they’re not going to be ready to be able to receive it. If you want to talk about any issues that you’re having at home or family, if you’re hungry, if you’re scared, if you don’t have clothing, if you don’t have housing, mental health is out of the window, because there’s no foundation,” Felix said.
Students who go through a crisis could also find more barriers for getting help.
“If you are trying to work with other agencies and set up, you know, supplies, and resources for a family, but then there’s a crisis that happens in the school with a student, but you’re over here trying to handle this, that student who’s in crisis doesn’t have immediate access to you,” Flagg said.
Felix and other Social Workers and Care Coordinators must wait as the school board makes a decision on whether or not they want to enact Magueja’s recommended plan.
