001okay sure I can forward my slides here one second so we can get you at the starting page okay there we are um so I wanted to start off with again just saying thank you for coming and trying to sort of give you an introduction to Jeff and I um this is a a project in Caster Valley that's very very much homegrown and there's no real separation between special ed services and general ed services we work a hand inand with the same kids um as a as a great team in our district so Jeff and I will be bouncing back and forth but um maybe wanted to start with just a little bit of introductions for both of us so you know who we are and then we'll get into the nitty-gritty of social work
002so again my name is maryan Meadows um my district title is coordinator of Behavioral Health I started as a counselor in the district and um got some great projects um that I was able to to do including building our social work team and building out wellness centers at our uh secondary schools and then also this year we brought a health clinic to Castor Valley high school so it's all part of this Continuum of services I also like to say that I'm a parent in Castor Valley I have two teenage girls so please send me all the Good Vibes that you can one is graduating high school and one's coming into high school so um that is uh I'm definitely a what do they call it a participant Observer I'm both raising teenagers and trying to
003make services for teenagers and and younger kids too so that's me I got my social work degree at San Jose State University uh right down the street about 45 minutes a great program loved it and um then I got my administrative credential through Cal State Eastbay so I'm a school administrator and a um School social worker and so that was I've always worked in schools so that's kind of the perfect combination so that's me I'll pass it over to Jeff my uh my awesome colleague here go for it Jeff great thank you Mar um can everybody hear me or no can hear you can okay great um hi good evening everyone so my name is Jeff moer um and like Miss Macy said I am a Ms social worker Ms is a fancy acronym that's
004used for educationally related Mental Health Services and our social workers in The District No Matter What level they're at if it's General Ed or special education we all do some form of educationally related services for our students um I am I think fourth year now in this District um I'm also a Castor Valley resident like many of you I have students in the district as well I have a sixth grade middle schooler and I have a 10th grade high schooler so very invested in the work that I do I think Maran and I um have a unique position in both being parents and both being service providers to a lot of our families and students here here in CER Valley um I graduated from Cal State East Bay with an undergraduate in sociology uh my
005main focus was on the so Social Service option um which is kind of like their um Social Work degree at the undergraduate level um after that I went on to um the UC Brickley Masters program for social work um and as we get into the slides later I do have a little fun fact that I don't want to spoil early on but I will definitely let you guys know when I get there um yeah that's about me thank you thanks Jeff all right so you're going to hear sort of professional stuff and we might throw some you know kid stories in there too but we're we know that us parents and this parent group we know that we're working very hard all the time so lots of um empathy and learning together with with uh
006all of us parents so I'm gon to move us forward a little bit um just if you know little factoids kind of about Castor Valley um our district we are um unincorporated um as many of you know we're not a city so we don't have a city government there's no mayor um there aren't like taxes levied so that we can pay for things like in um other cities in our area um so we're technically part of the like Castor Valley Eden um Cherry land kind of strip of land that is unincorporated so our services come from the county like um local you know Sheriff's apartment Ed mud those kinds of things so we're we're we are kind of a unique little pocket um we're next to Hayward s San Leandra is our buddy if we
007go over or our neighbor if we go over the hill we're in San Ramone Dublin so we're in a little pocket here um Castor Valley Unified has over 9,000 kids um two high schools a big giant High School Castor High and a tiny Alternative High School which is Redwood we have two middle schools 1500 kids at Canyon is and around 700ish at Creekside Middle School and then N9 elementary schools we also have a a tiny preschool and we have an adult school so those are part of kind of nice additions to all the educational opportunities we have in our district and um we have three schools that are considered Title One schools so that means that if you're a title one school it means that you have over a certain percentage of kids that qualify
008for free and reduced lunch so those are cve Marshall and Stanton um and I I just want to note that both Jeff and my family are Marshall must both of our kids all of our kids went to went to Marshall so it's a great school um so we're you know we love to shout out our our Mustangs at the elementary level which is fun okay um just a little bit more information about our demographics in ker rally our our student student Community is very diverse our family community very diverse you can see uh the comparisons but between Alan County and Castor Valley um but we are every year more divorce more richness just more more great families and kids to learn from and learn from each other so that's an exciting um exciting movement in
009our district okay so that kind of sets the sets the stage for um our community that we're that we Jeff and I live in and many of you live in um our schools um are a very important part of the infrastructure of our of s CER Valley I call it of town um because they're uh it's one at C is also C unified is one of the more larger Employers in the area along with the hospital so the schools create a very important sort of infrastructure for for um not just educating the kids but also keeping our keeping our community really vibrant so when we start to talk about our students and uh how we educate our kids in Castor Valley we talk about it as tears tiered level so you'll hear this um kind
010of Catchphrase it's called the multi-tiered systems of support mtss this means kind of levels um if you see see at the bottom we call call this tier one and that means we are aiming for healthy development for all so tier one means things that we give all students all students get excellent instruction we're going to talk about that in a minute so it's it means every student in Castor Valley at tier one um tier two is what we talk about when kids need additional um either small group uh support or they need it taught in a different way or they need something repeated um then they get tier two instruction and that doesn't it's not necessarily a special ed Service or Counseling Service it's in instruction as well so teachers provide tier 2 instruction just
011like we provide tier two level um supports and then tier three is much much fewer kids it's sort of a it's the level where students are getting in addition to tier one and tier two they're getting tier three level Services which is intensive but there are fewer kids that we give intensive services to um so that could be an IEP that could be a special uh Behavior plan it could be um a very special or specific um academic plan for for youth it just means that there are fewer kids at that tier three level so we're always looking at these three things three three ways of serving kids can I add one more thing Mary go please jump in yeah so as our students move through these tier systems um some that reach the tier
012three level it's not that they're always going to be at a tier three spot this just means that in that moment for whatever situation they're in they've been identified as a student or a group of students who might need um more intensive and individualized attention um to get them back to tier two to get that targeted intervention support and then eventually back to tier one so when students move up to that tier three level it's not permanent spot for most folks it's usually just because it's very situational and then they do end up bumping back down yeah thank you Jeff that's very true and and students can be doing lots of things at tier one and they have one thing like like speech they need speech services or there's a situation where a pet family
013pet dies and they need support at tier three for for just that but everything else is happening at these other tiers so um yeah it's just a just a way to think about the the types of instruction and services that we provide in our district so thank thank you for that jefff that was a great addition so as we move on we're going to talk a little bit more specifically specifically about Behavioral Health and then on the teers so you can get a sense of what happens for all kids what kids get in addition um when it comes to Behavioral Health Services and um Jeff and I will talk a little bit about what what is unique for special EDS students in special ed or unique for kids in the General Ed program um but
014most of this is things that we all do together so when we're talking about tier one for Behavioral Health largely it's provided by the school community and the teachers um so tier one again that means things that all students receive one is you know of course safe and welcoming School sites that's a given um we each schools want to have positive relationships with families we know that's really important to kids feeling safe and and welcome on campus um excellent instruction both academic and then in our district we have social emotional learning curriculum for all kids all grades and we also offer anti-bias anti-racism content all all levels all grades so that is a really important part of the tier one program um over the last few years to make sure that all of our kids
015feel included and welcomed on our campuses um we also have something called schoolwide positive behavioral interventions and supports it's called PBIS so if your kid if your student came home with um a roar card that would be in middle school that's an example of of U oh gosh Jeff is that Creekside or Canyon Creekside Creekside Roars that's Creekside cany store cards bid cards that's right and they did that on purpose so Roar and SAR is a acronym that explains the positive kind of attributes and behaviors of students on their campus so if a student comes home with a roar card or a sore card it means that they were showing that positive behavior so all schools in our district have some version of that there's Pride there's at at their Trojan tickets at the high
016cell High um there's all kinds of different their cougar Paws all different kinds of um PBIS versions that that we support again that all kids are taught all kids participate in um and it's it's uh it's how we build really positive School climate on campus and then I also added in here something that social workers do uh is provide um Child Protection lessons at kindergarten and third grade every year so it's kind of like stranger danger safe touch type um lesson so to make sure that all Kinders and all third graders get uh some some special time to think about how to keep themselves safe their bodies in there their feelings safe so all students receive these services and we're not even really at the social workers yet did you want to add anything Jeff
017as far as tier one uh no I I think you covered it pretty well thank you Mar yeah yeah of course all right so that's tier one so just really quickly we don't have a chat um the chat has turned off which is okay um I just kind of wanted to you know bring this into our mind about what kinds of behaviors we're noticing as parents right concerning behaviors or things that you're noticing either that are happening at school or at home um generally let's see it's spring starting to be spring I have a senior and there is serious senioritis going on uh with her she's like does this grade really matter does this class really matter matter there's a lot of this sort of kind of weighing whether or not to put the effort
018kind of motivation things that I'm seeing that I haven't ever seen with her before so that's an example of a behavior at this time of year um when you talk about uh Middle School behaviors right now the schools talk about um teachers and and staff talk about there being a lot of energy right now a lot of like relational energy kids are really ramped up excitable exciting um because the spring right it's like everybody's kind of coming back to life so there there are behaviors that happen in sort of a seasonal way that as school people as you know people work at schools and US as parents too kind of know to expect just because of the time of year or the things that are happening and then there are other behaviors that we may
019not have ever seen our kids our students or kids uh exhibit um that come up that we really want some support with um that comes up for a whole variety of reasons happening with family or injuries or um you know other other causes so it was just a way this doesn't have to be in the chat but just a way to kind of think about you know what's coming up for my student or my kid at this time so this list is an example of the things that we are very used to seeing at the schools um Jeff and I and my you all the other social workers our whole Social Work team deal with these issues every day so they can incl include really um crisis oriented things like homelessness and Bas needing basic
020needs a lot of um Stress and Anxiety is a pretty common one um issues around gun violence and substance abuse um kids you know figuring out who they are as an identity is not necessarily a a a bad thing or dangerous thing it's just this is kids are kids are thinking about this stuff um these are really common areas that we talk to kids about so sometimes parents will come and be like I'm really you know I I I either feel hesitant to talk about these issues or maybe they won't know how to help our kids we definitely we definitely talk about these things all the time with kids um Jeff do you have are there any um like ones we should have bolded for you that you're talking with kids about I said Stress
021and Anxiety but yeah it's generally a lot of stress and anxiety it's depression the PTSD I work with students who have a lot of trauma in their history so um you know noise and you know tight rooms or in cramp spaces could be a trigger for some folks um but it's it's pretty much the spectrum of things that we do talk about because some students will land in a few of these categories and some will like I said they they kind of bump out of them being in that tier three level and then coming back down so yep I do see a lot of students in that area of stress depression anxiety PTSD thank you and I was going to add to family changes right those are things that all we're all we all have
022families families go through changes and there are things kids often just need support in the transition so it's kind of a short-term support and that's like that's what you're talking about Jeff about being tier three for a little bit and then settling and being able to get support on the other sort of layers so um again family Chang is happening a lot too because that's that's real life so these are all common things if you're a student is dealing with these things don't be afraid to come forward and talk to us about how to support or any social worker for that okay I'm going to talk a a little bit about our cost process so what happens is when a student needs more support than at tier one and tier one is usually you know
023social supports in the classroom when friends are helping take care or the parents feel pretty um pretty like the students able to pretty much manage the feelings that are coming up um sometimes when we need to go to kind of a Next Level to get some more people involved we for Behavioral Health in particular and for the Social Work team we interact with a process called cost so coordination of services team cost and each school has one it's a team of internal staff that figure out what the best sort of next step is for a student to get um either additional support or an Outreach to a parent or um and it can be academic or behavioral doesn't have to just be Behavior or social emotional stuff but it's a process to help kind of
024get get started get the support started so I I won't read all the details here but you can kind of see the um the big categories there are pre-referral interventions so that means you know teachers are often trying things for a while and if it doesn't seem to stick or they need more of something then they get referred to cost that's this blue one refl to cost um the next step is triage which just means the coordinator for cost is looking at the referral and figuring out okay what's the best next step is it just to call the parent so that happens a lot sometimes it's okay we do need the team to get together and talk through um what the possible supports are that we can offer the student and family so that becomes
025the cost meeting they determine the next steps and then then linkage to services so in our district that could be something like um linkage to Services could just be calling the parent and letting them know about you know a summer opportunity or something like that sometimes it's an internal service where there's a um we call them RTI staff but they're um literacy coaches BAS basically literacy staff and maybe the student just needs more time with that person sometimes they need um to be assessed for bigger bigger sort of social emotional issues so that's where the linkage happens where there's a person who's assigned to do that that Service delivery and then there's tracking and followup where we're looking at um progress on whatever that service gos so these teams meet um meet every week Jeff
026is on multiple ones right now I only go to Castor Valley high school but um there there processes that have that were introduced probably I don't know eight or nine years ago and no school has ever stopped doing cost it's just a process that works and really helps it get services to students um Jeff anything to add I know we'll get to the special ed part of it but you're on many of them I'm sure I'm I'm actually um I I work at minisite so I'm invited to a lot of cost meetings yeah pardon me um I think another thing to also remember is that the cost process at the high school and at most schools is a weekly process so there are students that we talk about um on a weekly not not not
027every student every week but we do bring up students who are of concern that have made it to pardon me that have made it to a level of um I guess they have been identified as a student who might need some of these processes and linkages to service so we do talk about them um on a we basis and we generally have a running agenda and a running meeting correct yes and sometimes we need to talk about kids more quickly than one once a week right when there's crisis and that team having work together is able to really quickly get supports with student but it's at least once a week and it's turned out to be a really um effective uh process for sure all right so that's cost so again we see behaviors that
028maybe need more support than what can happen at the tier one level in the classrooms we refer to cop we get some Services run in and figuring out whether or not those are support and again this is there's no difference between special ed and gened at this point this is all tier um tier two partnership going on which is how we like it um so it tier two so that's the coordination Services team I'll tell you a little bit about the other possibilities at tier two that are just kind of small group offerings um check and checkout is an example of a small group intervention where kids get a point card but it's for positive points it's not for like monitoring you didn't do this you didn't do that it's a it's a card where
029we're marking and rating how often they're showing the positive behaviors and it's linked to incentives so checking checkouts a great great process um the schools offer all schools offer group counseling and supports all different kinds of topics I'm trying to cast R high right now has anxiety and girls empowerment uh there's a trauma group definitely lots of groups going on the Middle School level many many different topics so groups are something that are really really successful intervention um because kids like being in group and they learn from each other and and it builds pro-social bonds so group is a great model and then um we also have wellness centers and I'll definitely have Jeff jump in here because he works at all the wellness centers too so at um the wellness centers are at all
030secondary sites so secondaries middle school or two middle schools and our two high schools which is really exciting this year we opened um the the fourth one at Redwood so let me show you some pictures here this is kind of fun oh wait almost in the pictures um so the wellness centers started the The First Wellness Center was a cter Valley high school and we had we were in portables for a while and then that's where Jeff and I met and then we a beautiful new building got built right before covid so we threw our boxes in there and left for like a year and a half um but we are now fully moved in we've been there for three years and then after that big Wellness Center got settled then we expanded to Canyon
031and Creekside and then Redwood just opened theirs this year which is super exciting so it's all the same model um and the things that the wellness center is kind of consistently offer across the border crisis response breaks and I wrote often in IEPs and 504s because often they there's something that's specifically needed for kids with with uh you know needing a plan so breaks are often written into I APS and 504s at the wellness center and then they offer all different kinds of counseling Individual Counseling group counseling um a lot of collaboration do a lot of parent Outreach resources those types of things and so the wellness centers are staffed by the social workers and the social work interns so um Jeff and I both supervised interns this year we've both been interns because all
032social workers are interns um but these wellness centers have become a great place um not just for services for kids but also partnership with families and staff and um and a great place to learn right to learn how to be a social worker so these are really fun I'm G to show some show some pictures here I know I put them in um so you can see what they look like so these are the two Middle School um wellness centers you can see the inside the one on the left is creek site that's just one of the rooms um they have a huge space which is amazing and then Canyons you can see the inside of canyons very cute um they are moving into a brand new a bigger it's not a brand new building
033but it's brand new as a Wellness Center so they're moving into a much bigger space next year very excited about that and um this year or sorry 22 23 each School served over 300 students um which is a lot it you know when you consider how many it's like 10 classrooms worth the kids it's a lot of kids so there there's lots of traffic lots of stuff going on in those wellness centers and Jeff you're you're are you at both of these centers or I know you're on those sites a lot yeah so I do work out of the canyon Wellness Center when I'm at Canyon and at Creekside I do have my own office so that's where I'm currently housed so I do not work at the wellness center there but I do support
034the wellness center staff and social workers in there a lot and like you said Maran it is a high trffic area there are so many kids that go in and out of there because it is safe and it's welcoming and kids can thrive in there and they can just be M themselves and it's in a supported way great we love we love having too many kids it's a good sign it's a very good sign so those are the two Middle School wellness centers and then I have the high school wellness centers so the the one on the left is Redwood um they just opened they're brand new so it's in a portable that used to house the counselor and some other staff so now it's behavioral health staff and it's like kind of a long
035hallway um but with some really great seaing supports for students so we were very excited about redwood and then this is the the one on the right is the cell High School Wellness Center again that's the brand new building um kind of the mothership um Jeff is definitely staffed there and that's where my office is and this um last school year we served 652 students so it's like almost a quarter of the high school came through the doors so these are these are pretty hight traffic places but um it's great it's great because they're also not they're this there's not so much stigma attached to them because there's just a lot of stuff going on in there there's there's Community closets there's circles there's groups there's checkins there's snacks there's breaks it's it's a pretty
036active place so um so far I think our reputation is not one of um stigma but more of service and supports so that's a good sign so so those are that we wanted you to be able to see them at least the um the outsides of these wellness centers and some of the insid it's really fun um anything to add there Jeff before we head into special ed specific stuff I I did want to just note that again everything up in the presentation up till now has nothing to do with the kids IEP not IEP 504 whatever it has nothing to do with any of that it it's never a barriered service all kids can access everything we've presented up till now yeah I think one thing I wanted to mention is that 652 number
037that's unduplicated students's right so a lot of those students are um they they frequent the wellness center could be on a daily basis or a semi-regular basis so 652 is the unduplicated number there's correct so many students in there yeah that's right it's like thousands of visits it's like we don't even really count them anymore because there're so many yeah and like you said Jeff 652 there are students with IEPs we we don't we don't really even count that we don't know how many kids with IPS come through really um and other other plans other parts of you know half days and all kinds of things so the all the services up till now are there's never a barrier to access at all which is great that's how we it's specific it's on purpose so
038okay so those that's kind of the big big big picture and then we're just going to take a little time to talk about what's unique about um a Jeff serving as a special ed a student or a social worker who works with special ed students or students with IEPs and then I'll talk a little bit about some of the unique things about working with student who don't have IPS and have other plans so we'll kind of split up for a little bit that way but that means you're on Jeff you're next great thank you um so my slides you might need to click through a little bit but I'm gonna stop you right there um let me go back no that that's fine we we can leave it up now and um I am battling
039a cold everybody so apologize if I do have to clear my throat a little bit um I definitely wanted to make this meeting and present all of the wonderful things that I do as a social worker working in the special education um area and also uplift a lot of my colleagues work because what we do really does intersect a lot and a lot of the stuff that we talk about will be duplicated right so things that I might say now Miss Meadows might be repeating a little bit later down the line just because social work in essence is things that we do to um have positive outcomes for students depending on and it doesn't depend if they're specialist students or general students so um by definition social work workers are mental health providers right they're
040professionals with a unique knowledge and skill related to the school system and they provide mental health and Behavioral Health Services to students in collaboration with school sites in which they work so School social workers aim to enhance The Young Person's experience while they navigate the intersections of their academics their home school Community identity social influences because we all want the outcome of them to achieve success um especally education social workers like myself work with students and families and others support to the student who are generally at the tier two and tier three level um those are the ones that Miss Meadow had mentioned earlier that pyramid where it talks about students that receive some intervention and then some that receive some really specific interventions um and generally students when they reach that level they've been
041assessed in the special education area and qualified for that service and its related services so my position as a social worker here um is to engage students on multiple levels but not limited to like individual counseling I provide the group counseling spot um risk and safety assessments basic need screenings substance use um prevention parent Outreach I help the student or family access resources in the community um and we also work with district office administrators and program Specialists to determine your appropriate level of placement to meet the needs of a student while keeping in mind that we want to ensure the least restrictive environment possible so that kids can be with their gen Ed peers as as often as possible at times though a more restrictive placement is necessary and I will get into that as
042we get down further um currently um pulling this from from data that I have we have about 1,200 students that are eligible for the special ed program that's uh K through 12 um actually K through 12 and the adults adult uh school students and we have 122 pending right now there is only one of me so I'm the only M social worker um and I work at multiple sites um I'm specifically in the secondary area so uh both middle schools um the high school and at times I'm at Redwood High School um and I work in conjunction with all the behavioral health teams at all the sites so the psychologist the case management teams the school admin teachers family outside therapist sometimes non-public school staff and Residential Treatment Center um staff as well so um
043educationally related Mental Health Services um are mental health services for students who qualify for special education um the MS support students in their social emotional needs they can also help to improve the students academics behavior and overall well-being um the MS process is individually tailored to a students's need through their IEP which is an individual education program and through goals that are written specifically for that student to achieve um some of the things that uh we'll get into are going to be in the next slide um so IEP counseling is generally added to a student support plan when it's appropriate to help a student access their education students may have counseling services to address a range of topics um or to address like a counseling goal that's been written as I mentioned before and usually
044this is discussed with team members in an IEP meeting and signed by the parent or Guardian so we cannot start Services until uh we have consent from a parent that we are able to begin those Services um during most sessions social workers are also working with students um and they perform safety and risk assessments based on any disclosures so that first uh bullet point there the IEP counseling individual group crisis and safety because social workers are mandated reporters right so if a student discloses um something that is um a detriment to their safety or the safety of others then we are required by law to disclose but up until that point every every service and every topic is confidential um is a confidential space for students so the risk and safety assessment may also warranted
045CPS report or an assessment for 50150 which is an involuntary hold these are parts of my job that are pretty they're the hardest for me if I'm being honest um the case management in its essent is time management organizing so that second bullet point there and documentation so a bit about my work is that I have the ability to work with students um and one of the things that I like to do is work with them to find the best times to pull them so that I don't have to impact their education since a the services that I provide has to be through the school day it means that I do have to take them out of a class and that removes them from education so the third poll of Point Family work um it's
046really a broad term right it's used to describe family engagement supporting their student um and this could look like special education social worker setting up check-in meetings with parents to assess if there have been any changes in the home that could impact their their student uh meetings can be via phone they can be virtual they can be in person it's also a good way to assess whether the families might be in need of like basic resources referral services to Community Based organizations that specialize in a certain area because we are a school-based provider our our focus is pretty eclectic it's not very specialized meaning that we can process and help a lot of students in general terms but some students might need a more specific um a specific area need that just can't be housed
047in in the school-based um environment um Family Works can also entail home visits um I will get into that a little bit later but um home visits really meet the student family where they're at in effort to understand what barriers the family is facing um it's usually done at the request of a parent or in response to family disengagement or if we notice a students AC um attendance has just Fallen really far and the students is really um not com to school or it's really hard to reach the parent we might want to elicit a home visit to see you know how we can help intervene in that way um family work is also known as like Social Service um Social Work services so if it's written in an IEP it's not written as family
048work it's written as Social Work Services um and it's typically with a bank of minutes that I can access and help a family um with social work Services um so we mentioned cost meetings um I attend numerous cost meetings I also attend IEP meetings and I attend CFT meetings um cost is a a term for the general education uh meeting that supports students IP meetings is specifically for special education students and CFT meetings are specifically for students placed at Residential Treatment Centers so therapeutic boarding schools and we if students are placed there and I'm part of that team that team meets uh pretty regularly about once a month to update on to get updates on how the students doing IEP meetings are generally annually and cost meetings we have weekly um so teacher and staff
049consultations it's a big part of of what social workers do as staff um and it's important for a variety of reasons including sharing relevant information to teachers and student like I said I work with students who are um ones coming from a long trauma history so being in a class and having their Hood up might be a way that they can tolerate being in a classroom and some teachers might not understand that right away and then ask them to take their their hood off which can cause a conflict so my job is to help facilitate the most peaceful diplomatic solution that um supports the needs of the student to have them in class so they can access their education and if it's talking with the teacher to say the student does need to have their
050Hood up but they'll keep it you know away from their eyes they'll have it up then you know that's what I will do um social work workers may also be involved if there's like behavioral issues with students um in a classroom or if there's a behavior intervention plan which we call a bip because we love our acronyms um so what what a bip is is generally a plan to support students behavior so if they start showing um signs of of escalation in a certain area then the team is aware of of ways that have been um talked about with the IEP team including the student and the parent to help deescalate that um so the student can stay in class and access their education um we'll also collaborate with school administrators if they're disciplinary actions
051um involving a student in special education um in this process I'm generally acting as a student Advocate between the admin and the incident and the consequence um and this is kind of like the case for both General Ed and special ed you know if there's a a consequence that involves a student and administrators and a social workers is working close with that student on a tier two or tier three level um it's generally best practice to add The Advocate if possible to help mitigate some of the long-term effects of what a consequence might look like for a student uh we also work with psychologists we work with our SLE Partners our non-public schools and residential treatment centers much in the same way we do with other staff collaborating on best on the best ways in
052which to see our students on our case loads succeed so one more click Marian and like I said before it's really all about the relationship so think about a time when you um were were trying to get some information from somebody and you didn't like that person like how hard was it to hear that and how hard was it to understand what they were saying so the same goes for social workers if the relationship's not there it's really hard to engage a student it's really hard to engage a family and sometimes relationships break down but we do try to build those up as strongly as possible so that we can help support the students in all aspects of their life we can go to the next click so this is just Social Work Services continued
053um we do conflict resolution and restarted practices um that's something that social workers and gen Ed and special ed do um often working in school students will be involved in disagreements and things escalate so social workers may be involved in the restar of dialogue between students so they can move past the escalation the conflict resolution and restorative dialogues can be between two students can be between more than two students or it could be between students and teachers or there's been harm caused in the class room so it's not just peerto peer but it could be peer to staff um the home visits like I mentioned earlier but I'll just say a little bit more here because it is so important um is just another way that we try to meet the students where they're at
054you know if if a student has services on their IEP and they're not coming to school it's really hard for them to see progress if they're not engage with that service so often times I will um in coordination and collaboration with our school admin team make a home visit um attempt some calls and if I still get no response just do a an an unannounced home visit to see if I can not scare the the family or student but really just to be a support just to show them that we haven't forgot about them to see what ways in which we can help get their student back to school in the most affortable way possible and sometimes it doesn't always have to be mental health related it could be you know basic needs like they're
055having trouble with their car they can't they can't find a ride or someone to take their kid to school or pick them up so that's a challenge so they just op to take their kid to school so what we do is we find ways to support student engagement back to school they' be whether it be through like exposure therapy for students who have like School avoidance um or referrals to outside communities outside Comm organizations I'm sorry um so in my role there's always students that are placed at the comprehensive School site so like all of the schools you mentioned like all the elementaries uh Creekside Canyon the high school those are technically what we would call a comprehensive School site which require a high higher level of placement um after all interventions have been exhausted
056and implemented and there's been shown to be very little Improvement to the students ability to access their education so when this happens the IEP team um which I'm a part of on on a lot of students who are my case load all students on my case but some students who are not as well um we discuss alternative settings and these could look like our nonpublic schools in the area and they could look like the digal treatment centers which are those therapeutic boarding schools um just so that the students are able to um get the support they need in a safe way so that they can access their education again and this is really that tier three plus area because very few students we do recommend for non-public schools or residential and it's always meant to
057be a temporary solution because we do want them to reintegrate back into the school and we do want them to graduate with and we supervise interns one of the things that we love to do since we are a um Center that uh is on education setting is we like to help teach the next and upcoming School social workers kind of what the what the job looks like so these students are in um MSW programs looking for field placements so social work is it's such a broad field and there's so many specializations for school social workers and public schools we need like additional background checks and uh specific credentials in order to work with your students um our internship program Fosters a learning environment for our graduate students who may be interested in becoming School social
058workers down the line and here's the fun fact I think it's going to be two clicks oh wait I didn't I didn't put the fun fact on the slide I'm sorry but the fun fact was that about four years ago um I was also a social work intern that's where Miss meow said that she met me I was in my second year field placement at the cter Valley High School Wellness Center um as it was getting started and thanks to centers like the wellness center and students who access it and the great social workers to collaborate with I made the decision to become a school social worker yay I love that fact and and that's really it for me guys thanks for listening to my raspy voice it's great great job je um Jeff is
059very humble but he is an amazing social worker and a partner um so as we talk about the General Ed Social Work Services it looks almost unfair because we have a big staff um but Jeff is part of our our family our social work family and we partner really heavy heavily with him because of his expertise on the special ed side so just really quickly the gened um Social Work Services again this is all the whole District um includes four Elementary social workers two at the middle school um two at the high school at cell high and then one at the Alternative High School um we have a halftime District social worker who helps coordinate our cost coaching and um support services for our homeless families uh we have a coordinator that's me and then
060we contract with some folks to help with supervision because there's so many um staff who some some of who want supervision and then we also have nine mssw interns this year um which is our biggest crew ever Jeff has one of them um I had one of them for the first semester so we have a really big crew this year um biggest ever and it's all to support along both elementary middle and high school so folks are are um placed all across the all across the Continuum I'm keeping an eye on our time so get just a few more slides um this is uh just a little bit about the training that social workers have and it's true for Mr moer and for you know and if you're sped or General Ed or both um
061just around the training that social workers have one is that we all social workers have master's degree in social work um from accredited universities you know there a lot of really great universities right in the Bay Area um with social work programs so they have to have a master's degree plus a pupil Personnel Services credential which is a special school like basically School counseling cred itial plus many of our folks have a license so they're licensed clinical social workers and or are working towards their lure so it's it's a very highly um trained and educated group of folks who do this work um and and again like Mr moer and so many of our colleagues just real real experts in this work um so again uh Jeff mentioned you know our job is to think
062about how to support a student in the learning environment and also we have a lot of training in Clinical Services so we can provide therapy and think about how to help students um be successful in classrooms on school campuses and in the social environment so it's all great work um I won't go through these a lot of what Jeff mentioned is true for the gened social workers too um some some things to draw out is that we have um each of our social workers specifically case manage a group of homeless families so every school has that might range from one or two um families to I think it's over 30 at cter valy high school so the social worker jobs are to manage and support and and to really give resources to our homeless families
063um Jeff mentioned restorative practices and Community circles we're very much all about that process and that um involvement and again just like any social worker we um provide Crisis Prevention and intervention when students are coming in in crisis so it's uh again we we rely on each other a lot um to to make sure that students are getting the support they need and that we are partnering with families during those those things making sure families are part of the part of the process um just couple more slides here um wanted to just you know talk about how we fund social workers um in the state budget there are a certain number of academic counselors that have to be hired for a certain number of students for social workers there's no ratio so there is no
064requirement to H hire social workers for the General Ed program um and Jeff will have to talk to the special ed program so what that means for in cter Valley is that our board and our superintendent have prioritized social work in our district that's why we have such a robust team um it's not again not required by the state at this point that might be coming down the line but um we've had steady support for over a decade building out so um the funding we look at you know local control um the local control funding formula is where a place to find dollars for this our title $1 dollars we have a grant for sbhp um we're looking um to the state to be able to Bill and be reimbursed for some of our fund
065some of our you know the funds that it takes to hire social workers and then our interns are a great source we have nine amazing people this year that are um we offer them stip really small stipend and we're always looking for Grants and outside funding and trying to make sure that um this team of folks and every district is right they once you have a social worker you understand how valuable we are um each district is always looking for how to continue to fund the work so those are just some ideas if you're you know interested in in finding out more even you know talking to talking to a school site or site leadership about social work Services we didn't want to leave you without some resources um we work on a parent Hab
066a parent resource padet every year we always throwing stuff in here I wanted to make sure you could see it because I knew this was a parent uh training so um the the link is I might be able to grab the link and put it in the chat but the link is here and it's a great just resource around development relationships you can see the titles the um titles of each kind of row but just some great things to read and and you know ways to think about how to support all of our kids so um my last slide is just to say thank you and also um our contact information so again um I don't know if you knew this um Pam but it is um School Social Work week that National School Social
067Work week this week and your timing's perfect so it's fun to be able to just kind of you know bring our message to the world and say thank you to our colleagues and thank you to the leaders that continue to prioritize these types of services and also to always say thank you to the kids and the families because they're the best part of the work we we stay in this field because we love it and it's the kids and the families are the most rewarding part so thank you for inviting us and we're open to questions if folks want to ask any you know as we went through this highly comprehensive presentation we really appreciate your time and all your efforts and passion obviously and what what you do we know how important social workers
068are clinical social workers but it's it's uh very interesting if it's not something new but reminder of your educational background and your roles and responsibilities as we said the topic um you know within a school setting because oftentimes folks think of hospitals rather than School base so correct um highly informative I did have a couple of questions you both uh seem to answer them as you went through but one of my questions um when you talk about cost process is that that just I'm you know aligning it with the Student Success team and that it's a pre-re Under the Umbrella of pre-referral so that intervention strategies are tried over a period of time the law doesn't tell us what that specific time is unfortunately uh with data taken to determine the efficacy of those intervention
069strategies so is that what the cost is which I think of as SST yeah I can speak to that and I Jeff has Jeff has a lot of experience on on cost too yeah the idea is that the cost is kind of an internal meeting that happens first to figure out if SST is the right way to go or if it's just parent Outreach or if it's a seating change in the classroom it's meant to be it is it's kind of a pre-referral process um some schools run cost as pre-referral and have an SST track that's separate that's mostly acade just kind of for academics so it depends on the site but cost is really meant to be a pre-referral process so that you're so that we're making sure we're sending this referral the student
070to the right to the best intervention possible in in sort of a chronological order so Jeff you want to add to that how you seen it um I've seen it in much the same way um the cost process supports the need for a student to engage with like an SST um so when students been identified as needing that level of support it's usually assigned back to the academic counselor so that the counselor can set up the meeting between the student parent and themselves and maybe even some teachers to figure out ways in which they can support the student in the classroom um and oftentimes I've seen ssts evolve into 504s and then those evolve into IEPs I see I see and then I had another question um when you talked about that tier one for
071all students right in the wellness centers and connection to the wellness centers um you also and correct me if I'm wrong talked about you know um group counseling in those wellness centers so that isn't something it's is a kind of a drop in so it's not something that's structured because it's not special ed is that correct um it tends to be both so we offer kind of both one um I'll just tell you the real story in the beginning of the school year we host A coping skills group every day because something always happens at lunch and so fifth period was like okay we got to have coping skills so whoever came or you know had a hard time at lunch we could have support them during fifth period so we call that an open
072group and then there are also closed groups where we where students are referred and that specific set of kids goes through six to eight weeks of of group counseling so we have we have both versions and I know Jeff has run several of the groups too yeah the groups that I've run through the wellness centers have been outside of the IEP process but they've been more um focused towards um special education student referrals mixed in with some gened peers um generally when a plan for counseling is written in a students IEP it'll specify whether or not it's supposed to be individual or group and then that's what we need to do so generally most of my students are individual and those individual students might need some group counseling um that's you know shortterm and brief
073so we might recommend them for the outside of the IEP uh group counseling and they par consent that way I see thank you are there any other questions of Jeff or Maran um hi uh this is Michelle Glenda nardine who is our CAC chairperson has her hand up and has question go ahead Glenda I'm unmuted now thank you Jeff and thank you U Marian you are fabulous I can't tell you how much you do for schools and how much you do for Children and Families my question is on the behavioral of um uh self-destructive Behavior I know that you come across it a lot but um I've come across it in my career a lot as a registered nurse and the bottom line is is when you ask somebody especially a child if they know
074what self-destructive Behavior is and where it goes most of them don't and when you try to explain to them how their self-destructive Behavior hurts them even more than what they're trying to express they're not expressing it the right way and then they The Dominoes fall and then they get in more and more trouble and um I I'm not in cter Valley unide School District but um there is I I'm hoping this spreads so bottom line is I know that you probably come across it you probably touch upon it but the most important part to me is a child understands why he's doing a self-destructive Behavior because he really doesn't and he doesn't know where it goes and why so um I know you get touched with that all the time so my question is is
075before it leads to um suspensions and expulsions and even worse on that Domino Trail what are you doing where does that fit into your um reach because this starts at the elementary level it goes middle middle school and it goes to high school so where where are you tracking and where is this going and then the final thing is outreaching to the state for funding grant writers and federal lobbyists I have done that I have served on a school board for over 15 years I've served as a city council member for over eight years and I know that if you contact them and say when are you going to Washington DC I'd like for you to take this to a lobbyist in in the capital and I'd like for you to lobby for this purpose
076for mental illness special services special education whatever you feel is the priority I did it as a city council member and I got funding for a grant writer for a school district and we were able to move forward with that Grant and be able to secure other issues so I really would like to have your opinion on those two things um I can take a stab at that first one about supporting a student like in the classroom with self-destructive behavior um for students who are in special education who have like oppositional Defiance um behaviors uh generally may start out with like a classroom support plan and I think that might be the same for General ed students as well but typically when students have a lot of outburst or they've been coming up a lot
077against um like discipline or suspensions um we will try to write a behavior intervention plan for them and what that does it it identifies the targeted Behavior so the antecedent um what the behavior is because of that and then what that consequence or what the after effects look like in order to try to find ways in which we can work a plan with the student to help the them in that moment so sometimes a Behavior Support Clan might look like a student who is starting to have an outburst they might be like rocking in their seat a little bit or they might be like counting on the desk so that's assigned for the teacher whoever is in the classroom or whether it's a pair if the students paired with one to um follow the Behavior
078Support plan which could look like maybe reminding the students of focus or it could be let's take a step outside or let's take a stretch break or let's work with fidget um in order to help minimize the effects of that behavior not always successful but it's definitely one of the the routes that we like to go and it is written in the students IEP right some sometimes they they're in there other times it's uh kid is just so angry about whatever the situation was especially like at elementary school they'll go in and tear up the bathroom plug the toilets or whatever you so they're so angry they don't know how and they don't know why so uh nobody's going to really see that except for maybe a janitor and you know the bottom line is
079is unless it's reported because it self-destructive Behavior I had an example of a child who was playing basketball during PE and that he found out the kids were not throwing basketballs to him and so he went over Sat by the fence put his knees up and put his head down on his on the knees and wouldn't look up he was angry he was angry but he didn't know what at himself what happened or anything else so everybody has to be able to know the signs of self structive behavior before they continue to grow because the next time he may not do that he may say I want to go to the bathroom and then I'll tear up a bathroom plug up a toilet Etc and then each time it escalates so is there teaching to
080the staff everybody about signs of self-destructive behavior and why I think Mar might want to take that one I'm not sure if there's something specific for like a tier one that goes out to all students via teacher um maybe Maran has that answer though thank you yeah sure thank you um Glenda for the for the questions I'll I'll speak a little bit at to the tier one level when it comes to staff so I mentioned our social emotional learning curriculum um students get we call um they get that curriculum every single day at elementary level so 30 minutes a day and what it does is it helps as as the and a teachers teach it so as the teachers are teaching the the student students they are learning about what it looks like when a
081student is starting to feel distress right um and that that what we found is that as the students have become more aware of social emotional learnings like oh go ahead they frozen am I Frozen uh oh yes I mean there you go good you can see me okay sorry I can hear you oh good good so I was just saying as as we've been bringing curriculum to students the teachers are also learning because they've been teaching it we've done it lessons for 10 years so it's it's been a decade worth so there's that piece um and then we also did this year specifically we did training on uh it's called trauma informed classrooms and that was a way of teaching teachers it was our big professional development day we did Elementary and secondary um one
082I think at the end of last year and one at the beginning of this year so that elementary and secondary teachers understood what trauma is what it looks like in the classroom and how to create a classroom environment that helps students um feel safe and welcome and comfortable and also how to manage those feelings as they come up instead of seeing it as a disciplinary issue they see it as a as a social emotional issue right and something that we need to meet very calmly and with um kindness and compassion right so we've worked a lot in those ways um around teaching kids about emotion regulation and then teaching teachers about how the environment impacts their emotional regulation and so then when the hope is that we are seeing fewer self-destructive behaviors because kids can
083name how they feel and that teachers are more aware of what they're seeing in order to meet the kid with compassion instead of a disciplinary response and that's I think that's good for every kid and every class does that answer question that's great thank you so much sure thank you we have another um guest who would like to ask a question um princess you want to go ahead and talk yes hi can you hear me yes can you hear me yes yes uh I'm just asking if we could get the slides for tonight um the presentation that's all for yeah happy yeah I'm happy to send it to Pam and Pam you can send it out to the to the group I can put it on our website I was going to ask you if
084I could do that absolutely along with recording of this I would put it out for people who missed it and the slides absolutely presentations so send it to me okay I can do that okay Monique has a question go ahead Monique hi can you hear me yes yes yes we can hear you great um I so I have a question um say a child in elementary school already has an IEP a bip um and all that and say you know they work through most of everything that is on the IEP to assist them in any type of Behavioral maybe possibly similar to the Defiance one um or oh can you hear me hello yeah we can hear you oh okay sorry so say say that's all done and everyone um does everything as according to
085the IEP to the behavioral intervention plan what what are your next steps if none of that is working and there's still behavioral incidentes going on for like a a small child that is possibly like non nonverbal non-speaking or um moderate to severe in an SDC class what what would be the next steps for that yeah so that that is a great question because you know often time young people do come across um these uh strong emotions more than their n typical peers and then what do you do when we've exhausted all the interventions we've written a behavior intervention plan we've um assigned some counseling to the student and an effort to um understand and coach and teach um social emotional learning to them and if that still hasn't worked then um in one of my
086other slides that's when the referral process might have to happen and it's not because we want to um remove a kid from their environment it's just because the environment in which the kid is placed is not conducive to their learning um so a higher level of support may be needed um and like I said you know when they reach that level it's to get them the support they need for that moment and then when they're ready to step back down because the IEP team will meet very frequently um when it's time for that student to step back down and everyone agrees then we will make every effort to do so in a very supportive way so students who may um be in a comprehensive campus May um be recommended to go to like a counseling
087enriched classroom and then from there go to like a non-public school or or a residential treatment center depending on the behavior and the level of need okay great um and I I'm just curious you're just um part of Castro Valley's District correct correct so I'm employed by Castor Val unified um and my emphasis is on secondary sites but I do support some of the elementary school psychologists okay thank you you're welcome any other question questions no nobody nobody else no well we want Glenda go ahead I know I have one other thing to say I'm sorry if anybody out there has not filled out the signin form it's in the chat box with the link if you could do that I'd appreciate it I know that we all want to thank you again uh for
088for this as I said highly comprehensive um presentation for our Workshop uh we really appreciate it and I'm speaking for everyone here today and I know for for Glenda our chair who asked a couple of questions we appreciate that as well okay thank you everyone thank you for having us thank you everyone bye have a good night good night