eLuma, an end-to-end student services solution for mental health and special education, is joining forces with Aperture Education, a Riverside Insights company and the leading provider of social-emotional skills assessment and intervention supports, to deliver comprehensive solutions for social-emotional well-being in K-12 schools. The partnership was announced at the 2023 Annual Conference on Advancing School Mental Health in New Orleans.
Together, eLuma and Aperture will offer schools a more affordable and scalable multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) for mental health and social-emotional competence. The combined offering integrates Aperture’s entirely strength-based DESSA assessments and interventions with eLuma’s IEP-related services and school-based solutions. Schools continue to struggle to meet the full spectrum of mental health services for students. These entail implementing proactive social, emotional and behavioral supports, reliably identifying students who would benefit from additional assistance, and pairing these students with the right interventions and programs to deliver positive outcomes. eLuma’s partnership with Aperture gives schools the tools to develop comprehensive, school-based mental health systems and practices.
MTSS programs often lack scalable Tier I assessment solutions that identify intervention needs and guide educators through transitions in Tiers I, II and III. Without clear, ongoing visibility into students’ social and emotional needs, it’s difficult for educators to allocate resources and deliver vital interventions to students effectively. This partnership leverages Aperture’s universal screening, progress monitoring and intervention solutions—integral components of a comprehensive, school-based mental health program.
Together, eLuma and Aperture offer a one-stop MTSS that addresses key areas of support:
- Identification and Provision of Social-Emotional Learning Services: Aperture’s DESSA assessments and interventions help schools more easily identify and provide students with the necessary social-emotional learning supports. By proactively identifying student strengths and needs, educators can use these assessment results to engage students in activities that promote emotional resilience and overall well-being. The DESSA also helps educators better understand which students need higher levels of support.
- Expert Consultation: For schools that lack staff to properly manage a screening solution, eLuma can help optimize their implementation. eLuma’s dedicated consultants are experienced in establishing foundations for strong school-based mental health and can collect and analyze data and recommend interventions that will have a meaningful impact on students.
- Solutions that Meet the Needs of Students at all Tiers: With eLuma/Aperture, schools can leverage data gathered from DESSA and provide student support at each MTSS tier, maximizing the efficiency of their staff and interventions. eLuma’s licensed providers can help fill critical staffing gaps, providing virtual Tier II or Tier III interventions to students who need them, including IEP and 504-based related services.
Special education staffing shortages continue to overburden school specialists, with 78% of public school leaders reporting difficulty in hiring special education staff and 40% indicating that it was difficult or very difficult to fill “mental health professional” roles, according to the American School Counselor Association. This comes at a time when teen rates of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts and behaviors have risen by approximately 40% over the past 10 years. While Aperture provides actionable support for at-risk students, eLuma allows schools to offer a hybrid mental health approach that maximizes or augments a school’s existing staffing model. Whether schools need specific services (such as psychoeducational evaluations or staff professional development) or more intensive clinical services, eLuma can support the needs of educators and districts. As schools face a formidable funding cliff and are looking for ways to consolidate vendors and maximize their investments, eLuma and Aperture’s partnership offers a cost-effective solution as districts seek to stretch federal and local funding.
“Schools have unrealized needs to fulfill tiered mental health support, and evaluating students’ needs is not a straightforward process,” said Jeremy Glauser, founder and CEO of eLuma. “With our partnership with Aperture, we’re now able to provide a critical piece of the MTSS puzzle while creating greater efficiencies for under-resourced schools—helping reduce costs while improving student outcomes in academics and social-emotional learning and mental health.” “By pinpointing students who require support, Aperture helps schools proactively identify student needs,” said Vivek Kartha, CEO of Riverside Insights. “Should data show that these students need higher levels of support, educators can seamlessly connect with eLuma’s team of licensed online school counselors, speech-language pathologists or occupational therapists.”
Source: PR Web
