Funding for Counseling Program in Jeopardy

Lawrence Journal World (Lawrence, KS): When a Lawrence public school student is suicidal, depressed because parents are fighting, or burdened with other weighty problems, a counselor is on hand to help. "Lawrence isn’t Lake Wobegon," said Charlie Kuszmaul, a program coordinator for Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center, referring to the fictional locale where all children are above average. "We like to think it is, but it isn’t." But the money that funded the counseling program, which many consider essential to Lawrence schools, is drying up. "We need to come up with an alternate source of funding. If we don’t, the program will end or be reduced to a fraction of what it is now," Kuszmaul said. "I don’t know what we’d do without WRAP," said Carol Souders, a seventh-grade English teacher at Central Junior High. "I send kids to our WRAP worker all the time because they have issues I can’t handle," she said. "I have my hands full being a teacher. I’m not a social worker." To continue, WRAP needs about $800,000 annually. "It’ll go up on the big board with a lot of other things," said Lawrence public schools Supt. Randy Weseman. "It’ll all come down to setting priorities."
[Personal commentary: My hope is that their priorities will be the children, and that the WRAP program will receiving the needed funding.