On a sticky and still June weekday, kids trickled into the cool, air-conditioned room on the second floor of New Horizon Church that smelled like homemade enchiladas. Some had swimsuits on under their clothes and carried backpacks with towels. It was a pool day.
To an outsider, this could be any community summer camp or school program—but it is much more. NFusion Metro is a community-based mental-health-care program primarily for ages 11 to 18 years old in the Jackson area.
During the summer, counselors are doing themed weeks for their lesson time. On June 8, the “Around the World” theme was focused on Mexico. NFusion staff made enchiladas and virgin margaritas for the students to supplement their bag lunches and engage them in the lesson. After lunch the students went to swim at the community pool and then came back for group or individual therapy.
NFusion Metro differs from regular therapy for youth largely due to the environment. No part of the program’s rented space on the second floor of New Horizon Church feels like a doctor’s office. A long, open hallway connects staff offices. Counselors, whom the organization calls clinical care coordinators, share office space, and printed-out selfies adorn their doors.
“What we’re trying to do is have a non-traditional approach to therapy,” NFusion Metro Program Director Sabrina Vance told the Jackson Free Press in February. “There is such a stigma regarding mental health, so the reason why we’re not at the community mental-health center is because this age we work with—that population—they don’t want anyone to know that they’re receiving services. …
“We’re trying to provide a stigma-free environment, and that’s why we’re here at New Horizon Church.”
The advantage of a program like NFusion Metro, Shakena Lee-Bowie, one of the counselors at NFusion Metro says, is that she can do non-traditional therapy. Vance said some young people come to the program through referrals from Hinds Behavioral Health Services or Henley-Young Juvenile Justice Center. Other times, families find the program through word-of-mouth or another doctor’s referral.
‘It Caught Me Off Guard’
Evandia Woods remembers sitting in the room with her son, Von’Tavius, during a regular doctor checkup and was stunned to hear his affirmative answers to questions about thinking of harming himself.
“It caught me off guard,” Woods told the Jackson Free Press in February. “I was thankful because I had no idea. … (He) went day-by-day just happy and doing things like he normally (would), so I had no idea.”
The doctor referred her son to NFusion Metro, and Woods has seen dramatic changes in his behavior and their relationship since then. She said her son was not a big socializer before starting the program, but now that he has been in it for more than a year, he looks forward to interacting with his peers there.
“He comes every day that he can,” Woods said. “It was real friendly and open; they made us feel like we were welcome.”
When a family signs up to be a part of the system of care, the child, guardian, and counselor sit at the table and decide on what boundaries and care are necessary. Youth get individual and group therapy sessions as a part of the program, but they also have access to their counselor more directly. NFusion accepts all insurance, including Medicaid, and the program currently runs through a federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grant.
Parents and guardians get plugged into their child’s mental health care at NFusion, too. The program hosts nights specifically for parents to help break down the stigma of mental illness and bridge communication gaps.
At Their Level
Nadia Snyder has struggled with attention-deficit hyperactive disorder and got in trouble for acting out in school during middle school. She went to Hinds Behavioral Health for services, but at some point, her health-care coverage cut out, and she fell into a gap during middle school. When she was referred to NFusion Metro, she was nervous.
“I don’t know these people. How can I relate to these people?” she recalls thinking when she first started.
Bowie, Snyder’s care coordinator, agreed that Snyder should stick with it. She had a busy senior year. She was working two jobs, participated in Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps and was expected to help at home as the only child still living there. She came to the program when she could. Eventually, Snyder took a break from working and was able to start coming to group more.
“It helps me getting along with people because I’m really not a people person,” Snyder told JFP.
Snyder, who is 18 and recently graduated from Forest Hill High School, says NFusion Metro is different than other therapies she has gone through. She can text Bowie and keep her updated on how she is doing at school or work.
“Because we do nontraditional therapy, she will text me about issues that she has … and she’ll tell me how she handled them in a positive way instead of snapping off or some of the old behaviors,” Bowie said. “So she’ll text me and say, ‘This is how I corrected it or chose to ignore it.'”
The program has eased tensions in Snyder and her mother’s relationship, Snyder said, and she helps out a lot more at home. Bowie attended Snyder’s graduation from Forest Hill High School, and Snyder plans to attend a local junior college. In the meantime, she can still come to group and individual sessions at NFusion Metro because the program can serve youth up to 26 years old.
Vance is focused on making the program sustainable in the coming months, so it can continue after 2020 when the grant funds run out. Currently, the program is capped at 30 students a day, with a maximum of 10 students per counselor. This, of course, limits the reach of a community-based system of care. Vance said her goal is to create Rankin and Madison County NFusion Metro programs.
There are six SAMSHA-funded system-of-care programs similar to NFusion Metro statewide, including ones in Oxford, Southaven and Columbus.
JACKSON — Kids and teens who are 18 years old or younger can participate in Jackson Public Schools’ summer feeding program, which begins on Monday, June 4. The district uses federal funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture to pay for lunches served in Jackson at 12 different sites around the city.
On Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., students can go to one of the 12 locations to receive a free lunch from June 4 through July 13. The program is only closed for July 4.
Mary Hill, executive director of food service at JPS, said this is the 27th year in a row that the program has operated in the city. She said the goal is to not stop the stream of meals that students receive at school. The district is 100 percent on free-and-reduced lunch, meaning students eat free at school throughout the school year.
“I’ve been told that there are students that really rely on the program that we have,” Hill told the Jackson Free Press.
No transportation is provided to the 12 sites (listed below), but the only requirement for a student to eat is to be between the ages of 0 and 18 years old. Hill said the district projects it will serve about 4,500 meals a day this summer. She said groups from vacation Bible school or summer enrichment programs often participate. JPS will be reimbursed for every meal they serve.
The Mississippi Department of Education held a lottery for 90 unused vouchers in the current school year as the Legislature could debate this afternoon whether to expand the program beyond special-education students to all children in the state.
The ESA program currently awards vouchers to children with special needs who have had an individualized education program from a public school in the past five years. The program allows them to leave public school and use the voucher on services elsewhere, including at a private school.
MDE accepts applications in the summer before the school year begins, and in 2017, the department awarded 435 ESA vouchers worth $6,494 each (almost $3 million in state funds). Participants in the program submit requests for reimbursements on a quarterly basis. As of January 2018, families had used ESAs at 88 private schools around the state, a list from MDE shows.
The ESA voucher program is on a rolling admission basis, and 90 families who had received an ESA by February still had not asked MDE for reimbursement. The department announced a lottery for the remaining vouchers on Friday, Feb. 2, which closed on Tuesday, Feb. 6. The ESA program had more applicants than slots in 2017, so 367 applicants in the pool were eligible for those 90 slots. MDE will send letters to the 90 families on Friday, Feb. 9.
Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves supports expanding the ESA voucher program.
“Senate Bill 2623, expanding eligibility for the state’s successful ESA program, could have more impact on long-term economic progress than any other bill debated in the Legislature,” he said in a press statement.
MDE has not used the nearly $3 million appropriated to the program in past years.
Sen. Gray Tollison, R-Oxford, will have to bring out his voucher-expansion bill today in the Senate in order for it to stay alive. Senate Bill 2623 would ensure that the program prioritizes special-education students and low-income students before opening up to all other public-school students.
If MDE receives applications after Feb. 6, they will go into the 2018-2019 school year application pool. Participants in the program are currently allowed to roll over into next year and continue receiving the voucher, however, limiting the number of open slots.
Email state reporter Arielle Dreher at arielle@jacksonfreepress.com and follow her on Twitter @arielle_amara for live updates from the Capitol.
JACKSON FREE PRESS — Jackson Public Schools can start clearing accreditation standard violations as early as January. William Merritt, the executive director of school improvement, told the school board at its last December meeting that the board needs to get the new JPS corrective action plan to the Commission on School Accreditation by Jan. 16, 2018.
The next JPS board meeting is scheduled for Jan. 9, and the JPS Board of Trustees is expected to pass the district’s new corrective action plan at that meeting. On Dec. 19, the board had a work session where district administrators answered board members’ questions about the CAP. The Mississippi Department of Education found JPS to be out of compliance with 24 accreditation standards in the fall.
“We are of course still working with a sense of urgency in making sure that we correct all deficiencies that exist,” Merritt told the board on Dec. 19. “We are excited as we prepare to clear some standards and we will begin that process in January.”
Previously, JPS administrators believed they could not clear accreditation standards until after the Mississippi Board of Education had approved the district’s new CAP in February, but now JPS will be able to call MDE staff out to the district at the start of the year to begin clearing standards. Merritt said the district is prepared to clear several standards including the annual financial audit, dropout prevention plans, ensuring enough instructional time for students, professional development, child nutrition and safety.
“There’s continuous work that goes into that, and again we feel confident that we’re moving in the right direction with those standards and will be able to address those in short order when we return,” Interim Superintendent Freddrick Murray told the board on Dec. 19.
Other standards will be tougher to tackle, Merritt told the board, including having enough licensed teaching staff, repairing aging infrastructure and having an instructional management system.
After the Commission on School Accreditation and the Mississippi Board of Education approve the new JPS CAP, the district will have until July 31, 2018, to clear remaining accreditation violations.
Email state education reporter Arielle Dreher at arielle@jacksonfreepress.com.
If Tuesday night was any indication of how the new Jackson Public Schools Board of Trustees will operate, Jacksonians are in good hands. In a three-hour-long meeting, the new board members questioned just about everything on the agenda, as most of the trustees got their first taste of the different powers and responsibilities they hold. The board is one member shy of being full, only missing a Ward 3 member. They elected officers first, unanimously choosing Jeanne Hairston as president, Ed Sivak as vice president and Barbara Hilliard as secretary.
Besides approving or disapproving contracts, the board’s most urgent task will be to approve the district’s new corrective action plan in December. In October, the Commission on School Accreditation voted to keep JPS on probation. JPS is out of compliance with 24 standards, by the Commission on School Accreditation’s count. Interim Superintendent Freddrick Murray told the board that he is confident the district will present a competent CAP in the upcoming months.
The new CAP is due to the Office of Accreditation on Jan. 16, 2018. The Mississippi Board of Education must approve that plan in February, which starts the countdown until July 2018 when JPS must be finished with its CAP.
William Merritt, the JPS executive director of school improvement, told the board that the district has put in processes to address the deficiencies in the investigative audit. It is working with the Bailey Education Group, as well as receiving technical assistance from the Mississippi Department of Education’s Office of Accreditation on a weekly basis.
“Could MDE clear any of the items in advance of that?” Sivak asked district leaders Tuesday.
“Not before the state board approves the corrective action plan. This new CAP—it will serve as the CAP—the old plan will go away,” Murray said. “So on February 15, when the state board approves the plan … at that point we can start requesting that standards be cleared.”
A limited state audit of the district in April 2016 revealed deficiencies, some of which JPS has since overcome. Now, the district is working to meet the standards listed in both that audit and the full investigative audit, which almost prompted a takeover of the school district. Board members had a lot of questions about the Bailey Education Group, which the district has contracted with to help clear the standards. Merritt asked the board to approve another contract with the group for 20 days of work that would ensure the district is prepared for MDE to monitor their progress next spring.
“I am really concerned about spending $1,400 a day for 20 days on a consultant group that I’m not sure if it merits out,” Letitia Johnson said.
Merritt and Murray said they both felt confident in the consultants’ expertise, particularly because both Pat Ross and Ann Moore, who are working with the district, previously worked at MDE.
Board members were concerned about the district’s ability to track the group’s work.
“Understand that since we have used the group, MDE has not come out to monitor a standard since we have contracted with them,” Merritt said. “So until they come out and monitor us for compliance, it’s kind of hard to say whether or not to say their support (has helped).”
Murray said the district needs the support to ensure that standard leaders within the district can understand exactly what they need to do to meet the required standards.
“We were going through this process in the blind,” he said.
After several questions, the board did finally approve the third contract with the Bailey Education Group directly related to the district’s CAP this year. The first contract was for $95,900 back in April. The second contract with Bailey, for $145,000, focused only on Standard 20, which requires districts to have an instructional management system and tiered models. The third contract, worth $29,000, will allow Bailey staff to check the district for compliance after the state board approves JPS’ new CAP in the spring.
Bailey contractors are working with district leaders to review the new CAP plans, and the JPS board will have to approve that plan at its second December meeting.
Email state reporter Arielle Dreher at arielle@jacksonfreepress.com. Read more at jfp.ms/jpstakeover.
On a sticky and still June weekday, kids trickled into the cool, air-conditioned room on the second floor of New Horizon Church that smelled like homemade enchiladas. Some had swimsuits on under their clothes and carried backpacks with towels. It was a pool day.
The Mississippi Department of Education held a lottery for 90 unused vouchers in the current school year as the Legislature could debate this afternoon whether to expand the program beyond special-education students to all children in the state.
