Camino Nuevo’s teachers are trained to track not just academic progress but also overall wellbeing.
If academics slip, they offer reading or math tutoring. In the same way, when emotional or behavior issues bubble-up, a student is referred to a counselor to develop those equally vital emotional skills.
Most schools in L.A. Unified only provide counseling for the most serious mental disorders, targeting resources to the less than 1 percent of the student population – those diagnosed with a serious emotional disturbance. (Read more on this in the second part of our series.)
At Camino Nuevo, about one in four students receives one-on-one counseling or group interventions. They don’t just talk about their problems at home, but also learn how to process emotions and make better decisions.
“They need the place to - you know – detox, so to speak. To let go. To get all this out, and to learn about themselves,” said Gloria Delacruz-Quiroz, head of mental health at Camino Nuevo.
Research shows that not all children who experience trauma will struggle emotionally. Those who feel they have support from an adult seem to do better.
Ninety-seven percent of students at Camino graduate high school, compared to 68 percent district-wide, where the rate slips even further for Latino and low-income students.
To pay for it, the school taps MediCal, California’s version of Medicaid.
The charter school created a system where its own staff works alongside private counseling service providers - including the Los Angeles Childhood Development Center and Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services – right at the schools.
The services aren’t free. Camino Nuevo scrapes together $1.6 million to cover what the providers cannot, plus a smattering of other services school leaders term their "continuum of care," which include not just counseling but things like after school programs and field trips.
If academics slip, they offer reading or math tutoring. In the same way, when emotional or behavior issues bubble-up, a student is referred to a counselor to develop those equally vital emotional skills.
Most schools in L.A. Unified only provide counseling for the most serious mental disorders, targeting resources to the less than 1 percent of the student population – those diagnosed with a serious emotional disturbance. (Read more on this in the second part of our series.)
At Camino Nuevo, about one in four students receives one-on-one counseling or group interventions. They don’t just talk about their problems at home, but also learn how to process emotions and make better decisions.
“They need the place to - you know – detox, so to speak. To let go. To get all this out, and to learn about themselves,” said Gloria Delacruz-Quiroz, head of mental health at Camino Nuevo.
Research shows that not all children who experience trauma will struggle emotionally. Those who feel they have support from an adult seem to do better.
Ninety-seven percent of students at Camino graduate high school, compared to 68 percent district-wide, where the rate slips even further for Latino and low-income students.
To pay for it, the school taps MediCal, California’s version of Medicaid.
The charter school created a system where its own staff works alongside private counseling service providers - including the Los Angeles Childhood Development Center and Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services – right at the schools.
The services aren’t free. Camino Nuevo scrapes together $1.6 million to cover what the providers cannot, plus a smattering of other services school leaders term their "continuum of care," which include not just counseling but things like after school programs and field trips.
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