Volusia Cty, FL: $1.5M in state money for district to use for mental health support

June 26, 2018, Daytona Beach (FL) News—Journal: Volusia County School Board hears plan for new mental health services http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20180626/volusia-county-school-board-hears-plan-for-new-mental-health-services The Volusia County school district plans to hire 16 new employees devoted to providing additional mental health services to students, per state legislation that emerged out of the Feb. 14 massacre at a Parkland high school. But in creating a plan to spend about $1.5 million in state funds to provide mental health services, one of the district’s community partners was left out of the conversation for the second time in recent weeks: Halifax Health. The new plan will create four district mental health response and intervention teams of three people — a licensed mental health provider, a licensed school social worker and a school psychologist. It will also hire a district mental health specialist, two certified addiction specialists and a service analyst…. The presentation of the mental health plan without input from existing health care partners comes less than a week after the district approved a partnership with Florida Hospital on June 19 that other health care providers were not expressly offered the opportunity to enter into…. While the district defined and is implementing plans to provide security personnel at schools, the state only recently outlined guidelines for increasing mental health services. Now, with only one school board meeting left before the Aug. 1 deadline to submit mental health plans to the state, the board must be ready to approve a plan at its July 24 meeting. “I feel we have to do something after Parkland, there’s no choice,” said board member Melody Johnson. “This is part of the solution.”