N.L. launches new job position in schools to zero in on students' emotional needs
CBC
A pilot project in Newfoundland and Labrador will place teaching assistants in six schools this year with the aim of improving school safety.
The new hires — announced in August by the provincial Education Department — will be tasked with engaging and connecting with students to help them with their social and emotional needs and to help manage their behaviour, says assistant deputy minister of education operations Terry Hall.
"It's giving students the sense of belonging in the school and that there's someone that's there," Hall said.
The initiative aims to help curb incidents of violence in schools. In March, the province's teachers' union said there are an average of 29 violent incidents a day in the province's schools.
Hall says the assistants won't engage just with children who are misbehaving but will foster connections with all children.
The schools that were chosen to pilot the new positions are A.P. Low Primary in Labrador City, Bishop Feild Elementary, Brother Rice Junior High and Holy Heart of Mary High School in St. John's, William Mercer Academy in Dover, in central Newfoundland, and Corner Brook Intermediate.
Trent Langdon, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' Association, says the initiative arose from discussions the union has had with the government.
"We were very pleased to see it," he said. "If you have a strong relationship with a child, you're much better likely to have some success."
The initiative is a step in the right direction, he said, but more needs to be done to create "hubs of care for children in the front line," involving teachers, public health nurses, social workers and teaching assistants.
An example of what the role could look like, Langdon says, might be an assistant who notices a child struggling with anxiety, who can take them to different space in the school and help them regulate their emotions before returning to the classroom.
Hall says the department will monitor the success of the new position by asking students and teachers for their feedback.
The new positions also mean there are more hands to help current staff, Langdon says.
"With teacher shortages and right now with substitute teacher shortages … to have a consistent face with a lot of these children is very important," Langdon said.
"And depending on the diagnosis, it could be the difference of them coming to school each day."
