OACS News Service

School Health Support Services a ‘significant blessing’ for Hamilton school
Nine students receive personal support school services
Monday March 8, 2010 -- Michelle Strutzenberger
Calvin Christian School (CCS) in Hamilton has been accessing the government-funded School Health Support Services (SHSS) for 10 years, and they’ve proven to be a “significant blessing” for students, says Mary Guldemond, special education consultant for the Ontario Alliance of Christian Schools (OACS).

Over the years, the school has obtained occupational therapy, physiotherapy and speech therapy services for students.

Guldemon notes the service providers not only help individual students but have also been an excellent resource for the school with their wide range of experience and knowledge.

The school has also had exceptional success with accessing personal support school services.

Personal support school services are offered to students who require assistance with personal hygiene activities and routine personal activities of living. They are intended for those who, if they did not have them, would find their independent school attendance or participation “significantly disrupted.”

This year nine students at the school are receiving two or more hours daily of personal support worker (PSW) support. The students tend to be younger and have been declared to have major or multiple exceptionalities.

They require significant help with activities like eating, dressing, toileting, anxiety management, opening containers and doing buttons.

Guldemond notes the school appreciates being able to hire its own PSWs, and typically seeks out people who have been trained to work in an educational setting.

This is important because while the PSWs “primarily support students through activities of daily living, they also facilitate their academic and social development,” she says.

Also contributing to Calvin Christian School’s positive experience with SHSS has been the fact that the school has continued to manage its own billing for the services. It has not returned that responsibility to the area community care access centre (CCAC), as some schools have done.

Guldemond says there are several advantages to managing the billing. The school is able to hire staff whose values match its own. In addition, it tends to avoid wait-lists for service providers. If the CCAC manages the billing, the independent school is added to the public school wait-list for service-providers, which tends to be much longer.

Guldemond says the benefits of being able to access SHSS for the students at Calvin Christian School are significant.

“We at CCS Hamilton have high needs students that are able to participate in modified or alternative programs.

“Because they are supported so well physically, emotionally and socially, they are able to benefit from basic literacy and numeracy instruction, and thus to grow academically, socially and spiritually,” she says.

“Furthermore, with a good start at the elementary school level through this SHSS support, there is a much greater possibility that these students will achieve a measure of independence and improved well-being in their adult lives.”

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