Jacksonville ISD and
Crisis Center Form Partnership
April, 2008
Jacksonville ISD and the Crisis Center of Anderson and Cherokee County met on April 16 to develop a partnership for the 2008-2009 school year. Principals and counselors from the JISD campuses met with Donnie Hammock and Lisa Foreman of the Crisis Center to collaborate on the training needs for the campuses as required by the Texas State HB 121 Dating Violence Act.
Judy Terry, JISD Assistant Superintendent of Instruction and Curriculum opened the meeting, listing some of the needs of the district. Curriculum topics include Character Education, Safe and Drug-Free Schools, Human Sexuality and Dating Violence. Lisa Foreman gave each campus a list of programs available through the Crisis Center and commented that the center programs focus on more primary prevention and less risk prevention. The center has 26 full-time and 13 part-time professional staff that are trained to deliver programs to students, teachers and parents on subjects such as bullying, building self-esteem, Internet safety, and dating violence. Administrators and counselors were able to ask questions about concerns specific to their campus and to hear about programs offered meet these concerns.
Director of the Crisis Center, Donnie Hammock, commented Our commitment is to be here for the children, that is what this partnership is about. Adults should provide a safe environment so that children can be children. The Crisis Center works with eight area school districts using resources from the state and federal government. We are very interested in building a relationship with schools because once we have a relationship built we can work together to better help the child stated Mr. Hammock.
The Crisis Center and JISD have worked together in the past but this meeting forms a more cohesive relationship with the objective being an awareness of how the two entities can benefit one another.