As a school nurse for 14 years, I’ve had the great fortune to work in schools with the Communities In Schools of Renton’s Family Liaison program ever since it began in 1994. I still remember what it was like before family liaisons began working in the district. Food bank referrals, clothing bank referrals, housing referrals, transportation referrals and holiday assistance requests generally came to the school nurse.
Nurses need family liaisons now more than ever, because over the years, the role of the school nurse has changed. An increasing number of laws about students with life threatening illnesses, asthma, diabetes and severe allergies define responsibilities of the school district for students with these conditions. One simple example: Epi-pens. These medication-injection devices are kept on hand for people with life-threatening allergies. When I started 14 years ago, I had no epi-pens between the three elementary schools I served. This year, I had 24 between two schools, four in one classroom. The result for school nurses has been an increase in the amount of coordination between families and school district-wide staff.
Concurrently, the needs of families have become increasingly complex. The resources in the community are ever-shifting due to the ebb and flow of money, staffing and other variables. It takes a lot of time and energy to stay on top of the community resources. That is one of the beauties of family liaisons; they are on top of the services around the community. Nonetheless, funding for these kinds of positions, through the district or through great non-profit organizations like Communities in Schools of Renton, continues to get more difficult. As a result, a program which ought to be growing into every school in our district, is instead difficult to maintain at similar levels from year to year.
If we cannot find more dollars for a family liaison program like CISR’s, the needs don’t just go away. The work just shifts somewhere else – to someone else. Counselors, secretaries, principals, teachers and other already-busy professionals also try to meet family needs when a family liaison is not available, but no one has the base of knowledge or “reach” to be as effective for the child and family.
I hope the community will step up their financial support and help Communities in Schools of Renton deliver this service to all our Renton School District buildings – it is a grand vision, but I’ve seen the payoffs first hand.
Laura Widdice is the school nurse for Kennydale and Sierra Heights elementary schools in the Renton School District.
CISR benefit
Tickets are on sale for the annual benefit dinner for Communities in Schools of Renton. The dinner is Oct. 2 at Renton Senior Activity Center. Social hour is at 5:30 p.m. and dinner is at 6:30 p.m. Ivar’s is preparing the salmon dinner. Snohomish County Sheriff John Lovick will speak at the event. An assortment of gift baskets will be raffled during the dinner. Tickets are $35. Reserve tickets by Sept. 25. Call 425-204-2408.
