COLUMBIA, S.C. — Governor McMaster and the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (SCDHHS) announced that the number of school-based mental health counselors has doubled.
The current student-to-counselor ratio has been cut in half, making it easier for students to access mental health services in school settings.
In January 2022, the Governor directed the SCDHHS agency to review mental health services programs in SC.
The department found only 600 mental health counselors across the state; the ratio of mental health counselors to students was 1:1,300.
The director of strategic services at SCDHHS, Jeff Leieritz, said it needed to change.
"In September of 20223, so the start of this current school year, the numbers have improved," he said. "We have doubled the amount of mental health counselors that are available in SC schools and we have cut that ratio in half to one and 653."
A 2023 survey for South Carolina school district services showed that mental health counselors are now available in 230 more schools than in January 2022.
Increasing access to services at school is something Richland One School District Coordinator of Social Work Services, Toni Kelly Campbell, says gives students the ability to receive help without leaving the school's campus or disrupting their classes.
"If the student is having difficulty at school and it is a day where the mental health person is there, the student can get services or the student is a phone call away. Because we do at times do some of our services via phone. We can call the mental health person if they are sharing a school and they can be right over or provide the service at that point. And I think it helps the parents too because parents don't have to take the day off work to see a provider."
With the ongoing mental health crisis among the younger generation still occurring, increasing these services to meet the needs of students is extremely important when attending to and taking care of students as a whole, said Sonya Bryant, the Lexington School District Three assistant superintendent for personnel and instruction.
"We have to care for the whole child. Scores on tests, those are important, academic achievement is important," Bryant said. "But none of that is possible to be successful if we are not taking care of all the needs of the child, and a huge part of that is mental health support."
If services continue to increase, Bryant said she wants to see more students receive help the way she witnessed one student do in recent months.
"The last time I was at the high school, I saw her there, and she spoke to me, and she was upbeat, and her grades were better because of that, and she sees the mental health counselor weekly," she said.
Although services are improving around the state, Leieritz said there is room for improvement even after cutting the ratio of students to counselors in half.
"Our longer-term goal is to improve that further; to cut it in half again," he said. "We are going to need more people in the workforce to provide these services, more licensed mental health counselors to provide services. But we also need more community-based services."
The Department of Health and Human Services is continuing its efforts to increase services by requesting a behavioral health budget of $16.5 million in recurring state funds to address community-based services better and improve access to them.