Funding public schools is a key part of mental health services
Thank you for Michaela Ramm’s story on the difficulty of finding appropriate mental health services for youth in Iowa. And thank you to Gov. Kim Reynolds and Health and Human Services chief Kelly Garcia for identifying children’s mental health as a priority concern.
As the story notes, however, children with mental health needs often struggle in school and may need more than the typical classroom approach to succeed scholastically. What is missing from Reynolds and Garcia’s approach to the problem of supporting children with mental health needs is adequate funding of Iowa’s public schools. Without adequate funding, schools cannot provide the services all our children, but especially our children with mental health issues, need.
This includes funding for SUCCESS workers, interventionists, guidance counselors, school social workers, special educators, school-based therapists and others. Schools also need adequate funding to provide time for regular educators and specialists to meet so that they can work together to better serve all of our children…