After Chicago’s recent child murder and the string of school shootings in Oregon,

Arkansas, and elsewhere, we are apprehensive about the start of school this

week. As director of a resource and support center for school counselors who work in

all kinds of school settings, I know that many guidance counselors and school psychologists

will also be holding their breath as classroom doors open.

Kids are killing kids. The outrageously large case loads of school counselors,

psychologists, social workers, and nurses make it almost impossible for the

most skillful and dedicated of these professionals to know their students well enough to

detect, let alone prevent, potential tragedies.

Thus there has never been a more urgent moment for us to understand that the

work of school counseling practitioners is as critical to our kids’ futures as the

work for good teachers. And yet, in all the excitement over education reform, funding and administrative

support for social services in the schools are more fragile than ever.

Problems facing young people are stupendously complex: secret abuse and family violence,

the national reverence for firearms, the marketing seductions of drugs and

alcohol, the ravages of hunger, the devastating fingers of mental illness that can afflict absolutely

anyone. These clouds hang over every classroom. And unlike the distressing phenomenon

of the unrestricted availability of guns, these dangers insinuate themselves

easily past metal detectors. Struggling to balance impulse with reason, children and adolescents are

supremely vulnerable.

I have worked with a wealth of promising school-based mental health and violence

prevention programs that are bringing varied, nonstigmatizing support to

children, teens and their families at a relatively small price. Full-service schools, funded

through a variety of school-community collaborations, expand the range of supports traditionally

offered in schools to include social services, extended day programs and continuing

education for parents. Buildings that for years have gone dark at 2:15 in the afternoon are

turning into safe, vibrant lighthouses where kids and families are learning together.

New Jersey’s youth services programs, a state-funded initiative, offer

accessible, respectful comprehensive mental health and social services that

are integrated into the student’s school day at an annual cost of $200 per child. Trained adults have time to talk with

worried kids, teachers and parents; kids and adults find safety, connection, hope, and

efficacy instead of despair. Boston’s Peer Mediation SCORE Program is supported by a combination

of grant money and funding from the state attorney general’s office. A SCORE

facilitator tells of a young man who returned to the program to thank her two years after he had graduated:

`What I learned in our peer mediation class saved my life when a kid

threatened me on the subway Saturday night.”

There are other unforgettable stories about lives that have been saved, race

riots averted, critical treatment found for those who need it. These are the blessings that

are not covered in the news media, the disasters that don’t happen because

they are prevented by skilled professionals who are busy knitting depleted schools and communities together.

And, like many of us, they are afraid to speak above a whisper when things are going well.

There’s no guarantee trouble won’t strike tomorrow. We must invest in the

people whose skills and devotion equip them to do much more for the safety of our schools

and children than electronic fences and other technological fixes.

In our hearts, we all know that safe places with caring adults, like good

homes, make a difference. Without supports, many young people won’t finish school. We must advocate

the school-based services in our local schools by talking to our principals,

working with our school committees, and supporting those legislators who understand that

investing in school services is money well spent. Shortcuts mean the death of children.

Margot Welch is director of the Collaborative for Integrated School Services

at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 09/08/98.

Tags: violence