COVID Response
As together we face these challenging times, Counseling In Schools (CIS) continues to provide
COVID-19 has had a devastating impact that is being felt disproportionately in the communities of color that we serve.
This is in large part due to generational trauma caused by decades of structural racism, including the brutality of the criminal justice system, inadequate emotional and physical healthcare, and unequal educational opportunity.
Over the past weeks, we have witnessed the painful realities of structural racism with the continuing murders of Black Americans. However, as Counseling In Schools (CIS) and our staff well know, social injustice in communities of color has existed long before the current protests.
With students, parents and school staff experiencing even heightened trauma due to the pandemic, the need for CIS has never been greater.
What We Are Doing
- We are continuing to provide counseling services to students, families, and school staff remotely, including during the summer months, to help children in schools and homeless shelters during this crisis.
- We are providing therapeutic spaces for our school communities to discuss their experiences of racial inequities and mobilize themselves into positive action.
- We are participating in working groups to advocate for and help conceptualize how schools can be healing centers when they reopen in the fall.
- We are providing self-care strategies and tools to school staff committed to serving students as they too struggle through quarantine and loss.
- We are delivering food to children in need. While the City has been providing take-away meals at schools, many families are not receiving this food because they are being told to stay inside. We are organizing and paying local grocery stores to deliver the food that families choose for themselves.
- We are purchasing and distributing computers for our students who still are not connected to remote learning.
- We are developing partnerships with organizations uniquely capable of delivering materials and services to individuals who have limited access to needed resources
The emotional wellbeing of children and entire school communities is the foundation to sustained learning and social progress.
Counseling In Schools staff continue to serve on the frontlines, helping children and families during this difficult time so that they can thrive in school and succeed in the future.
We will update this page periodically as the situation evolves. For available resources in your community, please click here.