Marshfield Clinic Health System and Security Health Plan have announced b.e.s.t. grant recipients for the 2022-23 school year.
b.e.s.t. ® (Behavioral Emotional Social Traits) is an online screening tool that helps educators build and support the emotional health of all school children while identifying students who may need additional positive behavioral support. Developed by school psychologist Eric P. Hartwig, Ph.D., the tool provides educators with recommended actions to take based on student behaviors.
“Since the inception of b.e.s.t. and our partnership with Marshfield Clinic Health System and Security Health Plan we have completed over 312,000 b.e.s.t. screenings on children,” Hartwig said. “Throughout our partnership we have identified some very important trends about children’s behavioral health needs. The last school was year especially revealing as many children re-entered their schools full time. We saw once again the important role structure, predictable routines and social opportunity plays in a child’s development.
“This could not be a more important time to recalibrate our thinking about what families and schools can do in partnership to support a child’s behavioral health. b.e.s.t. is one tool schools can use to put the right people in the right place at the right time to help build reciprocal relationships and develop personal self-regulation in real time in the classroom.”
Since 2013, Marshfield Clinic Health System and Security Health Plan have partnered with the b.e.s.t. program and provided b.e.s.t. to 68 school districts.
“We’re glad to be partnering with so many school districts to improve the well-being of our children,” said Jay Shrader, vice president of community health for the health system. “The last two years have hit our teachers and students hard and we know from a 13-year history with this program that b.e.s.t.’s delivery of simple, concrete actions for classroom teachers will help students achieve better outcomes in and out of the classroom.”
In the 2022-23 school year, 143 schools in 39 counties will benefit from the grant, which provides technical support, bi-annual screenings for students, training, consultation and support. Marshfield Clinic Health System and Security Health Plan are supporting the implementation of b.e.s.t. during the 2022-23 school year in the following districts:
