McPherson County Truancy Prevention Project
Status:
Active
Town:
Countywide
Mastermind McPherson County Priority:
Community Health
Contact:
Kathy Neufeld Dunn
Organization Name:
Offender/ Victim Ministries
Start Date:
September 3, 2024
End Date:
May 30, 2024
Grants Awarded:
$8,100
Proposal Summary
The purpose is to continue to support programming to use Restorative Justice practices (e.g. Truancy Neighborhood Accountability Boards [or NABs] and facilitated dialogues)to discover and address the challenges of each family of a truant student that are keeping their child(ren) out of school. This collaborative work involves the County Attorney referring cases, then a trained OVM facilitator, parent, student, community, and school representatives gather to discuss the individual needs and challenges of each family, and offer services to address these challenges and remove barriers keeping their child(ren) out of school. A successful Truancy NAB with an agreement signed by all parties, with time-sensitive goals to address parent, student, and/or school challenges. OVM staff supports each family to complete their goals. When the plan is completed, the County Attorney receives notice of successful program completion. Truancy decreases in our county.
Community Impact & Accomplishments To-Date
We will obtain the following information to monitor project impact: principals’ and/or school counselors’ reports of the number of participating students who returned to regular school attendance, attendance records for each participating student at the end of each semester, a follow-up survey with school officials a year later to confirm continued regular school attendance.
Last year was our second year of this pilot project. We again received 14 truancy cases from our County Attorney and successfully served 9 families and their children in McPherson County. We were unable to make contact with the other 5 families whose truancy cases we received. 1 family declined our voluntary program. For the 9 families we served, we provided the support needed for each individual case, in some cases with a full Truancy NAB with follow-up and and in others we facilitated informal, valuable communication between parents, students, and school officials to meet individual needs. All students returned to class and are no longer truant. We continue to be proud of how this project that addresses truancy is serving our county.
Why do you think this project is necessary?
While truancy has decreased in the past year in our state, it is still much higher than before the pandemic, making it a continued problem in our schools and in our communities. Students continue to struggle with depression and anxiety, chronic physical illness, harassment and bullying. Another factor affecting student truancy includes parents’ early morning work schedules making it a challenge to get child(ren) to school on time. Parrents are quite hesitant to access services directly from DCF, because they are afraid they will ultimately lose custody of their child(ren). DCF staff overcome this barrier by working in the background, informing OVM of available community services. Without direct DCF involvement, families are more willing to use community resources that help them meet their needs.
Collaborative Partners
Department of Children and Families McPherson representative Melanie Secor Melanie.Secor@ks.gov – networking with OVM staff to share available community resources with families of truant students to address their specific needs and Prairie View staff to connect students with Prairie View caseworkers and/or therapists to respond to specific mental health concerns (Jodie Beeson beesonjg@pvi.org).
People Working On The Project
No Member is attached to this project
WE NEED HELP WITH
Contact Organizer
Kathy Neufeld Dunn