14 minute read
MENTAL HEALTH
Will the kids be all right?
NYC hired an army of social workers, trained parents and prepared staff. It may not be enough.
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By Maryam Rahaman
OVER A THOUSAND New York City public school kids while learning during the pandemic received personal phone calls wishing them a happy birthday, even during the summer. It was one of the projects that Keisha White, a school counselor at P.S. 117 in Queens, also known as the J. Keld/Briarwood School, came up with to keep connecting with her students as many opted to learn from home during the worst of COVID-19.
Students also received an individual shoutout on the school news, accompanied by 240 other videos that White created daily, including fun facts of the day. But now the focus is shifting to a return to in-person learning, leaving many unknowns about how students will react when they come back to school.
“We have no idea what we’re going to see. Do you know the amount of crying that happens after just one summer of a kindergarten or pre-K student coming to school on the first day? I’m trying to imagine after a year and a half. It’s going to be extra tough. I think that the children, the parents and the staff – they need stability. They don’t need all of this, ‘OK, we’re happy one day,’ and now everybody’s asked to stay home the next,” White said.
The New York City Department of Education, in anticipation of bringing students back to class, said it has expanded mental health resources available to them, beginning with the hiring of over 500 social workers. The department also said it expanded social-emotional screenings to all schools and offered mental health resource training to parents. Also, the Summer Rising school program this past summer combined academic support with social and emotional learning, along with enrichment programming to offer families child care services.
“We know that students cannot fully engage in learning unless their social-emotional and mental health needs are being met,” a city Education Department spokesperson told City & State.
All 1,800 public schools are set to open fully, with in-person instruction five days a week starting on Sept. 13. No remote learning option will be offered, despite the threat of the delta variant and mounting pressure from parents and teachers. Time will tell whether the expansion of mental health resources will provide enough of a safety net for the most vulnerable children upon their return.
Students in neighborhoods hit hardest by COVID-19 have already received additional support. Social workers in October were trained to become specialists in trauma-informed work to serve 350 schools identified as being in neighborhoods most affected by the pandemic. Federal funds were used to create 27 additional community schools in the impacted neighborhoods.
Mental health and social service professionals have applauded the expansion of services. Cristina Harris, director of training at Vibrant Emotional Health who has worked in education, social work and social services for children and families for 20 years, said she believes that the efforts are well-rounded by the new hires and trauma-based training. “School is the place where all kids are going,” Harris said. “So making sure that those services are being beefed up within schools is really exciting.”
However, there also are concerns over the effectiveness of the Education Department’s efforts.
Rohini Singh, a senior staff attorney with Advocates for Children of New York, was unsure whether the addition of resources would mean greater accessibility to those resources. “While you look at a list of the programs on paper, it sounds really
– School counselor Keisha White
robust and really supports students. What we find is that there’s a disconnect between actual direct provision of services for students and access for students,” Singh said.
The additional personnel also might not be enough. City Limits reported that while the department said it maintains a ratio of one social worker and guidance counselor for every 215 students, which is lower than the recommended ratio by the American School Counselor Association’s recommendation as well as the national average, the calculation of the ratio has come into question. City Limits found the department calculated the ratio by combining the total number of social workers and guidance counselors to the total school population, even though the two positions have differing roles.
Separating the two, City Limits found that there were 323 students for every guidance counselor, and 632 students for every social worker. Add the 150 social workers who were recently hired and 290 included in the executive budget on education and the ratio is 489 students for every social worker, according to City Limits. The news outlet did point out that the data doesn’t include other supports offered to students through community-based organizations and mental health clinics.
The Education Department did not respond to an email requesting clarification on the numbers.
Before the department announced the additional hires, the United Federation of Teachers released a five-point plan with suggestions on how to support students after the pandemic. Their initial point recommended creating teams of academic intervention specialists and social workers for each of the 1,800 public schools. The plan suggests that the average school would need about six to eight professionals, with numbers fluctuating based on school size. This would require the hiring of 10,000 new professionals and would cost approximately $1 billion.
Though the department’s numbers fell quite short of the UFT’s, the union was pleased with how the city has responded to the needs of students.
“The UFT and parents lobbied on the city, state and federal level, and the result was increased funding on all levels. As a result, (New York City) for the first time provided 100% fair student funding for every school. This increase gives principals the ability to hire additional counselors, mental health professionals and academic support specialists for their school communities – a big win for students. In addition, the City Council allocated additional funds for counselors at schools that previously lacked them,” a UFT spokesperson told City & State.
Funding also may prove to be a roadblock to cementing the longevity of the additional staffers who were already hired. As of now, federal pandemic relief money made several of these efforts possible, including the hiring of new social workers and the creation of new community schools. That funding will have to be used by 2024. Advocates said they were already prepared to fight for the continued funding of these programs – but that it will require evidence that the programs are working. Currently, data for some of these programs can be found using the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health’s data dashboard.
“The way forward is to make sure that everyone who works with children, or has a family of their own, or cares about children and families, understands what this looks like,” Harris said. “It is great that this money has been infused. But we’re going to really have to fight and advocate for the continued funding of mental health in schools.
“This is necessary foundationally to children and youth actually thriving in the world in educational outcomes and being able to then enter the workforce,” Harris added.
While funding will continue to be a fight for child welfare advocates, the Education Department’s efforts will help make a difference for schools like the Thurgood Marshall Academy Lower School, which will be receiving the help of one of the 500 new hires. Principal Dawn Brooks DeCosta believes that having a social worker for the first time will help the staff and students continue to prioritize social-emotional learning.
“So this will be the first time that we’ve had someone – our own social worker – and someone that can be very laser-focused and dedicated to making sure that kids are making this adjustment with a lot of support, any kind of trauma that students have experienced over the pandemic,” Brooks DeCosta said. “We’re just really happy to have someone that is going to be very focused on that, although we’ll all be involved. We want to make sure that that person is really available to all of our students and families. It’s a great benefit that we would otherwise not be able to afford on our own because of our small size.” ■
GCOM IS LEADING LOCAL GOVERNMENTS INTO THE FUTURE THROUGH IT MODERNIZATION
RECENTLY, GCOM CEO Kamal Bherwani sat down with City and State NY’s publisher Tom Allon to discuss his start in New York City government and how it led him to running one of the most innovative government modernization companies in the industry. Tom Allon: Tell us how you got involved in technology in the first place. Kamal Bherwani: It actually started way back in elementary school, when a friend of mine convinced me to loan him some money. A few months later, he told me he couldn’t pay me back, but he offered to give me a computer that his did had given him. I didn’t have much of a choice, but it kicked off my passion for technology. I taught myself everything I could. I started learning programming in the sixth grade, and by high school I was working in the evening as a programmer. I loved it from day one. I would have done it for free.
My first real job was as a programmer in New York City government. At the time, the agency was called the Department of General Services. From there I went to HPD, Housing Preservation Development, and left in 1994 to work for a private equity investment banking organization. I came back as the first CIO for DDC, Department of Design and Construction, then from there returned to HPD as CIO. I left government for a while and did some tech investing, but then came back as the CIO for Health and Human Services. About half of my career has been in city government. Tom Allon: Why did you decide to become the CEO of GCOM? Kamal Bherwani: GCOM is all about delivering outcomes for state and local government. And I have a passion for that because I saw what you could do when you were in city government. The kind of projects you could take on and the ways you can change people’s lives were pretty powerful.
State and local governments are better positioned to create lasting change because improving wellbeing for residents is a longitudinal problem. It’s about diverting and shaping on a person-byperson basis to drive large-scale-change. Small deviations that occur when someone is young can have huge impacts later.
Consider me being given that computer instead of being repaid that loan – that was a meaningless event for me at the time, but it shaped my entire life.
The work done at GCOM focuses on using technology to improve outcomes. Each city has their own view of what they want those outcomes to be, because service delivery happens at a local level. You don’t call the federal government to pick up your garbage or when there’s a problem with your child. You deal with the issue locally. I joined GCOM because I wanted to be involved in that type of change. Tom Allon: In which areas of government is technology-enabled change more ripe to occur? Kamal Bherwani: I think everyone can agree economic prosperity is directly tied to improving outcomes through technology, because incomes lead to outcomes. Then outcomes lead to incomes. It goes both ways. We can leverage technology to define outcomes and then agree on how to fund the outcomes that are the most important.
Regardless of the area, whether it’s public safety or education or healthcare, we have to begin by using technology to measure the outcomes that are most important. That means going beyond
SEAN PRESSLEY
transactional metrics. This is a long-time challenge within government. You have lots of people trying to do their best, focusing on a specific transaction, like getting residents enrolled in a program, but those transactions can’t be connected to the ultimate outcomes. Instead of tracking, if and when, a resident was approved for a certain benefit or qualifies for a specific program, we must be measuring the impact of those programs. Tom Allon: Obviously, the pandemic has changed how government delivers services. Can you talk a little bit about that? How do you think this is going to impact what you do and what government does? Kamal Bherwani: I think when we look back on it, we’ll see that the pandemic has been an accelerator of both good things and bad things. For example, it exposed inequity and injustice in a number of ways. On the other hand, it’s accelerated the adoption of digital technology – technologies that allow working from home and hybrid work environments, something governments have never really allowed.
It’s also accelerated the adoption of data analytics to enable better policies. The more data you have, the more transparency you can offer. Transparency leads to accountability, and accountability leads to change.
There’s no doubt we’re seeing the acceleration of technology in the health and human services space. Take telehealth, for example. Telehealth did not really exist on a pervasive until the pandemic happened. Necessity became the mother of invention. Telehealth is one of the ways that government is making life for residents easier, more frictionless. Tom Allon: If you could look into your crystal ball, what can we expect over the next five years in terms of technology improving government? Kamal Bherwani: I think there will be a competition for taxpayers, and tech will play a big part in that. Its already started and it has accelerated as a result of the pandemic. People realize they can work from home, and that’s given them options about where they want to live. How can state and local governments now market to taxpayers and bring people in? The mayor of Miami is actively marketing residents in California. That’s never really happened before.
We’ll also see governments trying to digitize and modernize as much as possible. New York City has done this in very strong ways. For example, we partnered with New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) to create a digital birth and death certificate system. All birth and death certificates are electronically certified by a doctor on a mobile phone, in a hospital, a private hospital, in a private setting, 15,000 doctors. Conversely, when someone passes away, the permission to bury or cremate is issued electronically.
Overall, I think we’ll see more of an investment in creating a frictionless experience for residents when they interact with government. More cities and states will focus on creating one-stopshops for residents to conduct all of their business with government, which is going to drive down operational costs. Tom Allon: Do you see anything happening on the federal level that gives you optimism that the federal government is starting to use digital technology to drive outcomes? Kamal Bherwani: There’s been fits and starts. There’s been a lot of great work done in the Office of the Health IT Coordinator to reward people who are in federal programs, medical programs, for the right outcomes. And that’s been very powerful.
Another initiative that’s outcomes-based is the Women, Infant, Children (WIC) Program. Tom Allon: What are your goals over the next five to 10 years for GCOM? Kamal Bherwani: I want GCOM to be known as the company that helps government create healthier and more prosperous communities. And for me, it’s all about delivering outcomes. A lot of technology providers will say “We completed a project on time on budget.” And they view that as a success. But my view of success is whether or not the government got the outcome it wanted for their residents when they created the program. And can we help them get there? That’s what we challenge all GCOMers to do. We’ve created a strategy called NextGen Government because we know that the pandemic and the investments coming in from the American Rescue Plan will be used to deliver better outcomes. And we want to be a partner with government in making sure those outcomes happen. Tom Allon:If you could wave your magic wand, what would be the best thing to happen over the next year, both in New York and for yourself personally? Kamal Bherwani: For New York, the best thing to happen would be people coming back. The people who left during the height of the pandemic coming back because they have faith in the city’s recovery. I’ve been in New York, pretty much my whole life with a few jaunts outside for work-related reasons, but New York’s been my home. So, if I could wave a magic wand, bringing those people back would be number one.
Second would be the allocation of the stimulus dollars in a way that would maximize a return on investment and drive the outcomes we most need in the city. My view is that we should treat the stimulus as an investment, not as a subsidy. If we treat it as an investment, it will become part of that income-outcome cycle and we’ll see real change.
