INDIANAPOLIS — A new report from the Children’s Policy and Law Initiative of Indiana is requesting “culturally-responsive and trauma-informed practices” within Hoosier schools.
According to the CPLI, these practices will allow students to have access to faculty and staff with the ability to facilitate a safe and caring educational environment.
“This can be achieved when all school districts and schools require all staff to participate in annual professional development on culturally-responsive, trauma-informed care, mental health, bullying, suicide prevention and child/adolescent development,” the CPLI wrote in the report.
Later, the report notes that trauma-informed practices can address and reduce the trauma and mental health issues that students may face both within and outside of school grounds. Per the CPLI, this includes systemic racism and other injustices, economic disparities, bullying and violence.
“Our goal is to create change within schools and the community where our students live that supports our youth and prevents them from entering the school-to-prison pipeline,” CPLI wrote.
Specifically, CPLI recommends that for every 250 students, there should be one counselor and one social worker. In the state of Indiana, there is an average of 624 students for every school counselor and 2,788 students for every school social worker, the report found.
A similar statistic applies to school psychologists and school nurses.
CPLI recommended that the ratio of students to psychologists should be between 500 to one and 700 to one. Currently, its Indiana average is 2699 to one. CPLI also suggested there should be 750 students for every nurse. The average ratio for that in Indiana is 959 to one.
For more information on CPLI, click here.
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