INNISFAIL - The Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools (RDCRS) division will be sending a letter to the associate minister of Mental Health and Addictions regarding mental health support challenges within the division, officials said.
During ta recent board of trustees meeting, Jodi Smith, associate superintendent of inclusive learning in the division, reported on the division’s recently prepared Inclusive Education Support Report, which looked at mental health supports within RDCRS
The division includes schools in Olds and Innisfail.
The report identified a number of challenges, some exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and includes budget cuts to Alberta Health Services Mental Health programs.
“With the loss of the regional collaborative deliver service dollars, RDCRS lost access to three mental health therapists that would come directly into our school to support students,” the report states. “Students and families are currently experiencing very long wait times to receive counselling.
“Last year, Children Family Services changed their delivery model to Family Resource Networks and cut dollars at the same time. During COVID-19, this has significantly impacted the community services available to families.
“We see the impact in all communities, but most significantly in our rural communities.”
The report concluded that more mental health support is needed going forward.
“Unfortunately, the lack of funding to support mental health and community support, directly impacts schools. These students and families come to us every day and without side referrals for support, schools are required to find a way to provide support," said the report.
“The community resources will often refer families back to schools. As educators, we need more mental health and community support for our students and families.”
The report also identified a number of strengths within the division when it comes to student support, including programming for blind/visually impaired and deaf/hard-of-hearing students.
“RDCRS has partnered with other school board to form a cooperative to continue to share this service with our blind/visually impaired and deaf/hard-of-hearing consultants, as well as our educational audiologist," said the report.
“The blind and visually impaired and deaf and hard-of-hearing teacher consultants will help teachers program for students and the educational audiologist assists schools in using the hearing equipment.”
Following Smith’s presentation of the report’s findings, trustees directed that a letter outlining concerns be sent to the Associate Minister Mike Ellis.
The complete inclusive education support report is available for viewing on the RDRCS website.
In other news from the recent board meeting, superintendent Kathleen Finnigan said Alberta Education has recently announced up to $45 million in funding will be distributed to school authorities on a per-student basis for targeting interventions to address COVID-19 learning disruptions.
“Our intervention plan will focus on research-based, early literary skills, that appear to be the strongest and most consistent predicators of latent literacy,” she said.
“Our project will provide support for school to target at-risk students with interventions above what would take place in a traditional class outside of COVID-19, based on student need identified by screening.”
Schools have been provided with local flexibility in the administration of the screens, based on feedback from principals, she said.
There are currently 10,372 students in RDCRS in the 2021-2022 school year, an increase of 0.5 per cent over 2020-2021, trustees heard.
