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Connecticut School Leaders Develop Mental Health Plan Based on Newtown Report

Chion Wolf
/
WNPR
The report says that Newtown schools failed to provide adequate mental health support to Adam Lanza.

Superintendents across Connecticut have put together a document they say will help schools deal with student mental health issues. The recommendations were influenced by the events that led up to the Newtown school shootings.

The five-page document is titled: "Best practice considerations for addressing student mental health issues."

"It's a document that could be put into place in every school district in the state of Connecticut," said Joseph Erardi, Newtown's superintendent of schools, speaking at a recent state Board of Education meeting.

"This is not about additional money," said Erardi, who took the job after the shooting. "This is about reallocating resources and recognizing and taking responsibility for social and emotional learning, and mental health issues."

The recommendations come directly from a lengthy report by the state's Office of the Child Advocate. That report found that Newtown schools continuously failed to provide adequate mental health support to Adam Lanza, the former student who went on a killing spree in 2012 after being homebound for several years.

Kathy Veronesi, superintendent of Region 13 schools, helped put together the recommendations.

"When we came together as a team, we just said, 'Ok what can we learn from this. And how can we examine this particular case within the context of mental health issues that we've seen with kids," Veronesi said.

The recommendations include suggestions to help with early identification and risk assessments, as well as ways to build relationships with parents and the broader community. It stresses the importance of collaboration and partnerships with mental health services providers, hospitals, and various state and nonprofit agencies.

The plan already has support from the Connecticut Associations of Public School Superintendents. Newtown's Erardi hopes the State Department of Education will endorse the document, which he says could be a model for mental health support for schools across the country. 

David finds and tells stories about education and learning for WNPR radio and its website. He also teaches journalism and media literacy to high school students, and he starts the year with the lesson: “Conflicts of interest: Real or perceived? Both matter.” He thinks he has a sense of humor, and he also finds writing in the third person awkward, but he does it anyway.

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