A recent CT Insider story highlights how the town of West Hartford has reduced school-based arrests and exclusionary discipline through participation in CHDI’s School-Based Diversion Initiative (SBDI).
The article, “How West Hartford educators are curbing suspensions, arrests at town’s middle schools,” covered the town’s response to concerns raised by the Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate regarding the number of school-based arrests at a district middle school. District leaders chose SBDI, a statewide initiative coordinated by CHDI, as a key strategy to reduce arrests and other exclusionary discipline practices across all three of the town’s public middle schools.
SBDI is a school-level initiative that engages all school staff and administration through consultation, training, and capacity building activities with the goal of reducing the rate of in-school arrests, expulsions, and out-of-school suspensions, as well as exclusionary discipline, all of which tend to disproportionately impact students of color and those with mental health or special education needs. Between 2009 and 2022, 65 schools in 23 districts across Connecticut participated in SBDI and, on average, saw a 29% reduction in court referrals and a 55% increase in the number of students connected to behavioral health services.
According to the Office of the Child Advocate, West Hartford’s numbers have already begun to improve since working with CHDI to implement SBDI.
“This is actually a model that is forcing our students and our adults to really have an opportunity for healing, an opportunity for hearing each other… I see a lot of our children doing better and better, and I’m excited about how receptive they are when we do things that are actually helping them.” - Juan Melián, Principal at participating middle school (as quoted in CT Insider article)
West Hartford has continued to invest in SBDI activities at its three middle schools and plans to expand the initiative to both of the town’s high schools next year.
Read the article at CT Insider.
Learn more about the School-Based Diversion Initiative and Download the SBDI Toolkit for your school or district.
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