How DC Public Schools Uses Student Data to Support Mental Health
August 26, 2019
By: Wendy McMahon
Source: EdSurge
Douglas Gotel understands trauma and its crushing consequences; when he was 21, his 11-year-old cousin was murdered. He recalls feeling helpless watching his cousin’s mother suffer, in anguish without access to a grief therapist in the small town where they lived.
Today, Gotel approaches trauma from a clinical perspective as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a Registered Play Therapist Supervisor. And as a Program Manager with the District of Columbia Public Schools Mental Health Team, he and his colleagues support the efforts of school-based social workers who deliver Evidence-Based Treatment (EBT) interventions. The interventions support the eight to eleven percent of all children in DC who have signs, symptoms or diagnosable emotional and mental health conditions, including those related to trauma.