Fresh Perspectives: HPU Anthology of First Year Writing, Spring 2013

WRAPAROUND: CREATING A STABLE AND NURTURING ENVIRONMENT FOR UNDERPRIVILEGED HAWAI´I PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS (By Jasmine Fujimoto) Do you remember in elementary school when you got that A on your spelling test, or planted a seed and watched it grow in science class, or when you went on a field trip to a cool history museum?

School is a place where you can learn about yourself, others, and the amazing world around you. It's a place where you can grow, discover new things, and achieve your goals.

Yet lately, education would seem to be the least of Hawai´i’s governmental concerns. With rapidly decreasing funds being allocated to Hawai´i’s public schools, we have fewer programs than we once had—and that is even if students have school, given that in 2010 to 2011 Furlough Fridays were created to reduce spending, leaving students with fewer days of precious and valuable learning time in the classroom. With education being such a huge determinant of who and what students will become, it is irresponsible and dangerous to leave them out in the cold, unprepared for what lies ahead of them.

The amount and quality of resources that a young person has available to them, or what they can afford, are key factors in the opportunities that one will receive. Things you may have taken advantage of in the past such as school lunches, medical care, and a loving family and home environment may not have come so easily to others. Getting a quality education is more difficult for students who are living in poverty or in dangerous neighborhoods, or who have to deal with substance abuse, frequent moving, and/or parents who are young, single, uneducated, or unemployed (Xaxx).

As summarized by Reece L. Peterson, wraparound social services are the means through which families that lack medical care, or who need drug abuse counseling, violence intervention, food, or housing, can get the help they need to provide a nourishing environment for their children to learn and grow. Wraparound social services are resources assembled and planned around children to meet their needs and interests (Peterson). These services are planned and provided by the child's family, school, and community. To support underprivileged children in Hawai´i’s public schools, we should introduce wraparound social services.

Peterson points out that creating a wraparound program involves a combination of elements. To implement a wraparound program, we start off by assembling a team of individuals invested in the well-being of the child and his or her family, including service providers and agency representatives from mental health, child welfare, and juvenile justice systems (Peterson). Then subcommittees are developed to coordinate identification, referral, and confidentiality issues and processes. Next, one would seek out an agency and coordinator to manage financial and service delivery issues. Once a qualified child and his or her family is identified and information releases are signed, a coordinator evaluates their needs to see which services and supports the family is in need of and what kind of resources the wraparound service can supply. This team then develops a specific plan of care for the child, implements the plan, and evaluates its progress and effects on the child. Using this method of evaluating the services will confirm the plan’s accuracy (Peterson).

We need wraparound social services because mental illnesses and emotional disabilities are much more common among children today than once thought. If we do not act soon, these conditions may have a dire effect on students’ ability to learn, or even just to be present in school. According to Families First, one in 10 U.S. children suffer from a mental health problem, with the most common being depression and ADHD (“Facts”). Sixty percent of children with mental health issues fail to - 47 -