WRAP social worker Carice Riemann, right, works with Central Junior High student Mary Ann Mendenhall. Riemann is in her seventh year as the school's clinical social worker from the Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center.
Mary Ann Mendenhall, a ninth-grader at Central Junior High School, just needs a place to vent on some days.
For the past two years, that place has been the office of her WRAP social worker, Carice Riemann.
"Some days, I'll be coming in here steaming, and I'll come out happy," Mary Ann said.
"I don't hardly see you angry at all this year," Riemann said recently, as Mary Ann sat on a comfy chair in Riemann's office next to a stack of books and games like "Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul" and Connect Four.
Riemann is in her seventh year at the school as the Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center clinical social worker placed in a school to help students in a myriad of ways. WRAP - Working to Recognize Alternative Possibilities - serves about 3,000 Lawrence students.
Funding for the partnership has been a hot topic for the past year as grant money ran out and local governments have experienced budget difficulties. But WRAP workers continue to help students at some schools, as leaders with the school district and Bert Nash are exploring ways to sustain it into the future, even if it has to be scaled back.
Last year, the school district, along with city and county commissioners, agreed to fund most of WRAP's $1.1 million annual costs. But funding was not included this year in the budgets for the city or school district, and based on those developments, the county is waiting to see whether it should finalize the $225,000 commitment in its budget, said David Johnson, Bert Nash's CEO.
Lawrence Superintendent Randy Weseman said this fall that the district supported having WRAP services, and he and Bert Nash leaders have initiated the review. They expect more details about a plan for board members to consider in coming weeks.
The main thing under consideration is how to fund it and sustain funding into the future, Weseman and Johnson said.
Based on past commitments, Johnson said, WRAP has enough funding to continue through this semester. They have also received two private donations of $10,000 to help go into the second semester. Both sides indicated it was likely the current WRAP staff would be in place the rest of the year.
"I would hope the plans will be jelling into place, but there's no drop deadline or anything like that," Johnson said.
The future
Bert Nash leaders have taken certain cost-cutting measures, such as not replacing WRAP workers who left for other jobs. Free State High School has a part-time WRAP worker, and South Junior High and Woodlawn and Kennedy elementary schools are without WRAP workers, said Charlie Kuszmaul, WRAP program coordinator. Most elementary schools have a part-time employee, while secondary schools have one full-timer or more, he said.
The review process includes looking at what the district offers entirely for mental health and intervention services. It includes efficiency.
"That means that you want to make sure that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing," Weseman said.
Deputy Superintendent Bruce Passman said the district has social workers and counselors and others who step in to fill a WRAP worker's role, but that can also be a concern because of their other responsibilities.
"That just stretches them further than they are now," Passman said.
Johnson, the Bert Nash CEO, said WRAP will be a smaller program in the future, but that they are committed to keeping it at full strength in secondary schools, which is one option.
There are no plans to cut any positions, and if cuts have to be made, parents, students and WRAP workers would be given notice, Johnson and Kuszmaul said.
'Rather take a pay cut'
Riemann, the Central WRAP worker, estimated that she interacts with a quarter of the school's students, including, doing counseling, mediation and anger management. She said it would be difficult for her to try to handle more than one school.
One teacher says Riemann is an integral part of the needs of her students.
"For my job, I'd rather take a cut in pay than to lose my WRAP social worker," said Mary Davidson, a Central special education teacher.
Bert Nash staff members and school district administrators say they are optimistic about their conversations so far and continuing their long partnership.
"We have a really effective community that's very aware of those kind of concerns and issues," Kuszmaul said. "Fortunately, there's a good, solid relationship among the various players, and we can focus on that."
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rocketmom67 (deena wilson) says…
The WRAP program is an amazing resource in the Lawrence community. Children are coming to school with more and more serious mental and emotional concerns and the typical school counselor, although effective and wonderful at what he/she does, has not been trained to deal with these issues. The school social workers in Lawrence are spread so thin, often managing 3 or more schools--plus they are funded by special education so need to spend the majority of their time in that arena. The WRAP program is a unique and effective way to address the needs of students.
As a parent, Carice has been a wonderful resource. When my child needed a 504 plan, Carice was the one person in the school who helped me through that process--she was the ONLY person who came to the meeting! When the next school year came, she was the one who got the plan out to all the teachers. She provides support to my child at school and to me as a parent of a teen. If she were not at Central, there would be no "go-to" person. I have tried to figure out who that would be if she were not there--and there is no one. School counselors are wonderful and do a great job at what they are trained to do--school counseling--but they do not have the training and resources to be clinical social workers. The professions compliment each other and provide a safety net for kids to resolve troubles or to deal with chronic emotional issues but one part time person is not enough for an elementary school and even two at the jr. hi. is not enough to meet the needs of all the students.
I now work in a district without a program like WRAP and we are drowning in students with serious emotional issues. We simply do not have the resources to meet the needs. Lawrence does not realize what a gem they have with the WRAP program. Now that this program is established and well utilized, it will be a catastrophe to schools and students if it were discontinued.
rocketmom67 (deena wilson) says…
Lawrence has changed their requirement for school counselor and are now opening up that position to "mental health workers". If someone's training is in school counseling then they do have to have a teaching certificate. The counselors I have talked to have commented that they feel ill equiped to deal with the more serious mental health issues--which abound in our schools. I love school counselors and I think they do a great job--I think it is a different job then the WRAP workers--it meets a different need. They are also very busy with classroom guidance--this makes handling crisis and meeting with individual students very difficult. I think it use to be that only someone with school counseling training could be a school counselor but I am seeing that change a lot now.