Lincoln Public Schools students are expanding their visions of success this year with the help of extra school social workers, therapists and mental health professionals.

LPS is using two new federal grants to provide important support systems to students at several locations. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) have provided money for intervention services, violence prevention programs and student therapy sessions. The grants will run through September 2027.

LPS has three school social workers and has contracted with three school-based therapists to work with students and families. Long-time teacher and administrator Tom Kolbe is also serving as a re-entry team leader.

The Student Support Program (SSP) is one of the grant’s main recipients. SSP team members work with middle and high school students who have either been suspended or expelled from school. SSP Coordinator Ashley Dotson said the additional school social workers and therapists have influenced the entire SSP community.

“The therapeutic piece of it has been phenomenal,” Dotson said. “The changes here have just been astronomical in a very positive way.”

LPS Mental Health Coordinator Andrea Phillips said the grants have provided another avenue for LPS to help people. Many previous SSP students excelled in their future goals after attending classes on the 40th St. campus. The goal is for those numbers to rise throughout the 2025-26 and 2026-27 school years.

“I think people often think that when kids get suspended or expelled, that that’s it,” Phillips said. “They don’t know that there are services that we provide once kids are either suspended or expelled. We’re still working hard with them.”

School social workers Becca Rivers, Danae Hyde and Heather Bock began assisting students this past fall. In addition to spending time at the SSP, they have also worked with the LPS Transition Program and the Pathfinder Education Program. The LPS Transition Program, which is housed at Northeast High School, primarily serves students with health needs such as anxiety or depression. The Pathfinder Education Program is designed for students at the Lancaster County Youth Services Center.

Rivers said one of the trio’s primary goals is to provide people with a sense of belonging during the school day. That is especially true on the SSP campus, which is a place of restoration for students from all across the city.

“We have three social workers here, and sometimes all three of us are here in one day, so that gives us a lot of opportunities to get to know these kids,” Rivers said. “They see our faces along with the rest of the staff here, and they’re given an opportunity to see how they can shine and what their strengths are.”

The team has implemented several hope-based intervention strategies this year. School social workers and therapists meet with students when they arrive at SSP to learn more about their lives. They discover if physical, social or emotional harm has either happened to or been caused by the student, and they develop individualized solutions for each scenario. This allows them to create a timeline for the student to transition back to either their former school or new campus.

“We know that if they’re going back to that building, it’s important to repair that harm because otherwise it’s going to bubble up again and cause problems,” Phillips said. “A big premise of this work is restorative practices.”

Increasing self-esteem is another key piece of the restoration strategy. SSP students are learning about healthy relationships in Voices of Hope group sessions and can earn rewards, such as school t-shirts or lanyards, for exhibiting good classroom behavior.

Dotson and other SSP leaders have also piloted a nine-week mobile barbershop program. Trusted mentors provide participants with a confidence-boosting haircut and other essential therapeutic services.

“We really work hard on having them say that statement of, ‘I am a good kid’ out loud, because they have to start hearing it from themselves,” Dotson said. “Words turn into actions and emotions, and the more that they’re starting to see that and feel that, the more their vision of themselves starts to change too.”

Those actions set the stage for the re-entry process. Rivers, Hyde, Bock and Kolbe create transition plans with families, schools and outside agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services. Students learn that school social workers will remain connected with them once they return to larger buildings, which has fostered a sense of security, trust and reassurance.

“The initial feedback from everyone involved in the meetings has been great,” Rivers said. “I think those have been really helpful.”

“We have families who are learning to trust us,” Dotson said. “Building that trust with them and trying to create that warm handoff to a comprehensive school so that trust continues is a really big step for us.”

Rivers said the extra support systems are providing rays of hope to many students who are eager to improve their lives.

“It’s meeting people where they’re at, which is the basis of social work,” Rivers said. “You start where people are and you move from there. You walk with them – not in front of them, not behind them, but right next to them – and that’s what we do with these students here.”

Did you know that LPS has more than 50 school social workers? Find out more about our school social workers and how they help our students in all grades.

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Student Support Program

Student Support Program

LPS school social workers expand resources for Student Support Program