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Hudsonville staff report growth in school nursing and school-based mental health services; district cites more than 1,600 therapy sessions this year
Summary
District staff told the Hudsonville Public School District board that school nursing and newly expanded school-based mental health therapy reached hundreds of students this year, reporting about 1,657 individual therapy sessions, extensive case management work and expanded CPR/first-aid training for staff.
At a Hudsonville Public School District board meeting, staff presented an update on district nursing services and a newly expanded school-based mental health therapy program, reporting roughly 1,657 individual therapy sessions this year and wide staff training efforts.
Mandy Thomas, a student-services leader who introduced the presentation, said the district’s school nursing team focuses on systems-level supports: preparing medical emergency response teams (MERT), providing CPR and first-aid training to staff, coordinating specialized nursing for students with ongoing health needs and training office staff on medication administration. Thomas said “it might surprise you to know that 3,000 of our students have health conditions” and that district records show more than 3,000 individual nursing encounters this year and about 3,400 instances recorded as requiring individualized medical support.
Dr. Vanderjag, the superintendent, said this school year was the first in which Ottawa County’s mental-health allocation was given directly to the district to run its own program. “This was the first year that those dollars were directly given to the district to implement their own program,” he said, and he praised the mental-health staff’s “resiliency, problem solving, and improvement.”
Presenters Alicia Vaz and a staff member identified as Nick summarized the mental-health therapy work. They said the district provided 1,657 individual therapy sessions, served 131 students with direct therapy, and completed 1,275 case-management contacts connecting families with community resources. Services included weekly or biweekly individual therapy, group therapy, after-school “kindness clubs,” parent education and family outreach such as newsletters and a family-connection night. The team also produced a vape-education video module for students with repeat vaping incidents and partnered with Ottawa County Health Department on an oral-health clinic and CoreWell on suicide-prevention training.
The presenters described the program within a multi-tiered system of supports: much of their work is tier 1 (education, family outreach and early intervention), while individualized therapy for identified students is a tier-3 intervention requiring parent consent and input on the care plan. “We ensure that the family not only provides consent, but they also give input into what the care plan looks like,” the presenters said.
Staff said about 600 district employees have received CPR or first-aid training from the nursing team this year. They also described the nursing team’s role arranging substitute nurses when a student’s healthcare plan requires daily clinical tasks, and maintaining a record of thousands of individual nursing contacts across the district.
Board members asked about how staff spend their time and how the district coordinates with other local schools and the regional intermediate school district. Presenters said most time is spent in buildings meeting with students, teachers and families, and that the intermediate school district convenes periodic coordination meetings.
District leaders said they will use the summer to review lessons learned and to plan for adjustments next year. They also said this pilot-year experience will inform how the district uses county funds going forward.
